"You see," said poet Blandmour, enthusiastically--as some forty years
ago we walked along the road in a soft, moist snowfall, toward the
end of March--"you see, my friend, that the blessed almoner, Nature,
is in all things beneficent; and not only so, but considerate in
her charities, as any discreet human philanthropist might be. This
snow, now, which seems so unseasonable, is in fact just what a poor
husbandman needs. Rightly is this soft March snow, falling just before
seed-time, rightly it is called 'Poor Man's Manure.' Distilling from
kind heaven upon the soil, by a gentle penetration it nourishes every
clod, ridge, and furrow. To the poor farmer it is as good as the rich
farmer's farmyard enrichments. And the poor man has no trouble to
spread it, while the rich man has to spread his."
"Perhaps so," said I, without equal enthusiasm, brushing some of the
damp flakes from my chest. "It may be as you say, dear Blandmour. But
tell me, how is it that the wind drives yonder drifts of 'Poor Man's
Manure' off poor Coulter's two-acre patch here, and piles it up yonder
on rich Squire Teamster's twenty-acre field?"
"Ah! to be sure--yes--well; Coulter's field, I suppose is sufficiently
moist without further moistenings. Enough is as good as a feast, you
know."
"Yes," replied I, "of this sort of damp fare," shaking another shower
of the damp flakes from my person. "But tell me, this warm spring snow
may answer very well, as you say; but how is it with the cold snows of
the long, long winters here?"
"Why, do you not remember the words of the Psalmist?--'The Lord giveth
snow like wool'; meaning not only that snow is white as wool, but
warm, too, as wool. For the only reason, as I take it, that wool is
comfortable, is because air is entangled, and therefore warmed among
its fibres. Just so, then, take the temperature of a December field
when covered with this snow-fleece, and you will no doubt find it
several degrees above that of the air. So, you see, the winter's snow
_itself_ is beneficent; under the pretense of frost--a sort of gruff
philanthropist--actually warming the earth, which afterward is to be
fertilizingly moistened by these gentle flakes of March."
"I like to hear you talk, dear Blandmour; and, guided by your
benevolent heart, can only wish to poor Coulter plenty of this 'Poor
Man's Manure.'"
"But that is not all," said Blandmour, eagerly. "Did you never hear of
the 'Poor Man's Eye-water'?"
"Never."
"Take this soft March snow, melt it, and bottle it. It keeps pure as
alcohol. The very best thing in the world for weak eyes. I have a whole
demijohn of it myself. But the poorest man, afflicted in his eyes, can
freely help himself to this same all-bountiful remedy. Now, what a kind
provision is that!"
"Then 'Poor Man's Manure' is 'Poor Man's Eye-water' too?"
"Exactly. And what could be more economically contrived? One thing
answering two ends--ends so very distinct."
"Very distinct, indeed."
"Ah! that is your way. Making sport of earnest. But never mind. We have
been talking of snow; but common rain-water--such as falls all the year
round--is still more kindly. Not to speak of its known fertilizing
quality as to fields, consider it in one of its minor lights. Pray, did
you ever hear of a 'Poor Man's Egg'?"
"Never. What is that, now?"
"Why, in making some culinary preparations of meal and flour, where
eggs are recommended in the receipt-book, a substitute for the eggs
may be had in a cup of cold rain-water, which acts as leaven. And so a
cup of cold rain-water thus used is called by housewives a 'Poor Man's
Egg.' And many rich men's housekeepers sometimes use it."
"But only when they are out of hen's eggs, I presume, dear Blandmour.
But your talk is--I sincerely say it--most agreeable to me. Talk on."
"Then there's 'Poor Man's Plaster' for wounds and other bodily harms;
an alleviative and curative, compounded of simple, natural things; and
so, being very cheap, is accessible to the poorest sufferers. Rich men
often use 'Poor Man's Plaster'."
"But not without the judicious advice of a fee'd physician, dear
Blandmour."
"Doubtless, they first consult the physician; but that may be an
unnecessary precaution."
"Perhaps so. I do not gainsay it. Go on."
"Well, then, did you ever eat of a 'Poor Man's Pudding'?"
"I never so much as heard of it before."
"Indeed! Well, now you shall eat of one; and you shall eat it, too, as
made, unprompted, by a poor man's wife, and you shall eat it at a poor
man's table, and in a poor man's house. Come now, and if after this
eating, you do not say that a 'Poor Man's Pudding' is as relishable as
a rich man's, I will give up the point altogether; which briefly is:
that, through kind Nature, the poor, out of their very poverty, extract
comfort."
Not to narrate any more of our conversations upon this subject (for
we had several--I being at that time the guest of Blandmour in the
country, for the benefit of my health), suffice it that acting upon
Blandmour's hint, I introduced myself into Coulter's house on a wet
Monday noon (for the snow had thawed), under the innocent pretense of
craving a pedestrian's rest and refreshment for an hour or two.
I was greeted, not without much embarrassment--owing, I suppose to my
dress--but still with unaffected and honest kindness. Dame Coulter was
just leaving the wash-tub to get ready her one o'clock meal against
her good man's return from a deep wood about a mile distant among the
hills, where he was chopping by day's work--seventy-five cents per day
and found himself. The washing being done outside the main building,
under an infirm-looking old shed, the dame stood upon a half-rotten
soaked board to protect her feet, as well as might be, from the
penetrating damp of the bare ground; hence she looked pale and chill.
But her paleness had still another and more secret cause--the paleness
of a mother to be. A quiet, fathomless heart-trouble, too, couched
beneath the mild, resigned blue of her soft and wife-like eye. But
she smiled upon me, as apologizing for the unavoidable disorder of a
Monday and a washing-day, and, conducting me into the kitchen, set me
down in the best seat it had--an old-fashioned chair of an enfeebled
constitution.
I thanked her; and sat rubbing my hands before the ineffectual low
fire, and--unobservantly as I could--glancing now and then about the
room, while the good woman, throwing on more sticks said she was sorry
the room was no warmer. Something more she said, too--not repiningly,
however--of the fuel, as old and damp; picked-up sticks in Squire
Teamster's forest, where her husband was chopping the sappy logs of the
living tree for the Squire's fires. It needed not her remark, whatever
it was, to convince me of the inferior quality of the sticks; some
being quite mossy and toadstooled with long lying bedded among the
accumulated dead leaves of many autumns. They made a sad hissing, and
vain spluttering enough.
"You must rest yourself here till dinner-time, at least," said the
dame; "what I have you are heartily welcome to."
I thanked her again, and begged her not to heed my presence in the
least, but go on with her usual affairs.
I was struck by the aspect of the room. The house was old, and
constitutionally damp. The window-sills had beads of exuded dampness
upon them. The shriveled sashes shook in their frames, and the green
panes of glass were clouded with the long thaw. On some little errand
the dame passed into an adjoining chamber, leaving the door partly
open. The floor of that room was carpetless, as the kitchen's was.
Nothing but bare necessaries were about me; and those not of the best
sort. Not a print on the wall but an old volume of Doddridge lay on the
smoked chimney-shelf.
"You must have walked a long way, sir; you sigh so with weariness."
"No, I am not nigh so weary as yourself, I dare say."
"Oh, but I am accustomed to that; _you_ are not, I should think," and
her soft, sad blue eye ran over my dress. "But I must sweep these
shavings away; husband made him a new ax-helve this morning before
sunrise, and I have been so busy washing, that I have had no time to
clear up. But now they are just the thing I want for the fire. They'd
be much better though, were they not so green."
Now if Blandmour were here, thought I to myself, he would call those
green shavings "Poor Man's Matches," or "Poor Man's Tinder," or some
pleasant name of that sort.
"I do not know," said the good woman, turning round to me again--as she
stirred among her pots on the smoky fire--"I do not know how you will
like our pudding. It is only rice, milk, and salt boiled together."
"Ah, what they call 'Poor Man's Pudding,' I suppose you mean?"
A quick flush, half resentful, passed over her face.
"We do not call it so, sir," she said, and was silent.
Upbraiding myself for my inadvertence, I could not but again think to
myself what Blandmour would have said, had he heard those words and
seen that flush.
At last a slow, heavy footfall was heard; then a scraping at the door,
and another voice said, "Come, wife; come, come--I must be back again
in a jif--if you say I _must_ take all my meals at home, you must be
speedy; because the Squire--Good-day, sir," he exclaimed, now first
catching sight of me as he entered the room. He turned toward his
wife, inquiringly, and stood stock-still, while the moisture oozed from
his patched boots to the floor.
"This gentleman stops here awhile to rest and refresh: he will take
dinner with us, too. All will be ready now in a trice: so sit down
on the bench, husband, and be patient, I pray. You see, sir," she
continued, turning to me, "William there wants, of mornings, to carry
a cold meal into the woods with him, to save the long one-o'clock walk
across the fields to and fro. But I won't let him. A warm dinner is
more than pay for the long walk."
"I don't know about that," said William, shaking his head. "I have
often debated in my mind whether it really paid. There's not much odds,
either way, between a wet walk after hard work, and a wet dinner before
it. But I like to oblige a good wife like Martha. And you know, sir,
that women will have their whimseys."
"I wish they all had as kind whimseys as your wife has," said I.
"Well, I've heard that some women ain't all maple-sugar; but, content
with dear Martha, I don't know much about others."
"You find rare wisdom in the woods," mused I.
"Now, husband, if you ain't too tired, just lend a hand to draw the
table out."
"Nay," said I; "let him rest, and let me help."
"No," said William, rising.
"Sit still," said his wife to me.
The table set, in due time we all found ourselves with plates before us.
"You see what we have," said Coulter--"salt pork, rye-bread, and
pudding. Let me help you. I got this pork of the Squire; some of his
last year's pork, which he let me have on account. It isn't quite as
sweet as this year's would be; but I find it hearty enough to work on,
and that's all I eat for. Only let the rheumatiz and other sicknesses
keep clear of me, and I ask no flavors or favors from any. But you
don't eat of the pork!"
"I see," said the wife, gently and gravely, "that the gentleman knows
the difference between this year's and last year's pork. But perhaps he
will like the pudding."
I summoned up all my self-control, and smilingly assented to the
proposition of the pudding, without by my looks casting any reflections
upon the pork. But, to tell the truth, it was quite impossible for me
(not being ravenous, but only a little hungry at that time) to eat
of the latter. It had a yellowish crust all round it, and was rather
rankish, I thought, to the taste. I observed, too, that the dame did
not eat of it, though she suffered some to be put on her plate, and
pretended to be busy with it when Coulter looked that way. But she ate
of the rye-bread, and so did I.
"Now, then, for the pudding," said Coulter. "Quick, wife; the Squire
sits in his sitting-room window, looking far out across the fields. His
time-piece is true."
"He don't play the spy on you, does he?" said I.
"Oh, no!--I don't say that. He's a good enough man. He gives me work.
But he's particular. Wife, help the gentleman. You see, sir, if I lose
the Squire's work, what will become of--" and, with a look for which I
honored humanity, with sly significance, he glanced toward his wife;
then, a little changing his voice, instantly continued--"that fine
horse I am going to buy?"
"I guess," said the dame, with a strange, subdued sort of inefficient
pleasantry--"I guess that fine horse you sometimes so merrily dream of
will long stay in the Squire's stall. But sometimes his man gives me a
Sunday ride."
"A Sunday ride!" said I.
"You see," resumed Coulter, "wife loves to go to church; but the
nighest is four miles off, over yon snowy hills. So she can't walk it;
and I can't carry her in my arms, though I have carried her up-stairs
before now. But, as she says, the Squire's man sometimes gives her a
lift on the road; and for this cause it is that I speak of a horse I
am going to have one of these fine sunny days. And already, before
having it, I have christened it 'Martha.' But what am I about? Come,
come, wife! The pudding! Help the gentleman, do! The Squire! the
Squire!--think of the Squire! and help round the pudding. There,
one--two--three mouthfuls must do me. Good-by, wife. Good-by, sir, I'm
off."
And, snatching his soaked hat, the noble Poor Man hurriedly went out
into the soak and the mire.
I suppose now, thinks I to myself, that Blandmour would poetically say,
He goes to take a Poor Man's saunter.
"You have a fine husband," said I to the woman, as we were now left
together.
"William loves me this day as on the wedding-day, sir. Some hasty
words, but never a harsh one. I wish I were better and stronger for
his sake. And, oh! sir, both for his sake and mine" (and the soft,
blue, beautiful eyes turned into two well-springs), "how I wish little
William and Martha lived--it is so lonely-like now. William named after
him, and Martha for me."
When a companion's heart of itself overflows, the best one can do is to
do nothing. I sat looking down on my as yet untasted pudding.
"You should have seen little William, sir. Such a bright, manly boy,
only six years old--cold, cold now!"
Plunging my spoon into the pudding, I forced some into my mouth to stop
it.
"And little Martha--Oh! sir, she was the beauty! Bitter, bitter! but
needs must be borne!"
The mouthful of pudding now touched my palate, and touched it with a
mouldy, briny taste. The rice, I knew, was of that damaged sort sold
cheap; and the salt from the last year's pork barrel.
"Ah, sir, if those little ones yet to enter the world were the same
little ones which so sadly have left it; returning friends, not
strangers, strangers, always strangers! Yet does a mother soon learn
to love them; for certain, sir, they come from where the others have
gone. Don't you believe that, sir? Yes, I know all good people must.
But, still, still--and I fear it is wicked, and very black-hearted,
too--still, strive how I may to cheer me with thinking of little
William and Martha in heaven, and with reading Dr. Doddridge
there--still, still does dark grief leak in, just like the rain through
our roof. I am left so lonesome now; day after day, all the day long,
dear William is gone; and all the damp day long grief drizzles and
drizzles down on my soul. But I pray to God to forgive me for this; and
for the rest, manage it as well as I may."
Bitter and mouldy is the "Poor Man's Pudding," groaned I to myself,
half choked with but one little mouthful of it, which would hardly go
down.
I could stay no longer to hear of sorrows for which the sincerest
sympathies could give no adequate relief; of a fond persuasion, to
which there could be furnished no further proof than already was had--a
persuasion, too, of that sort which much speaking is sure more or less
to mar; of causeless self-upbraidings, which no expostulations could
have dispelled, I offered no pay for hospitalities gratuitous and
honorable as those of a prince. I knew that such offerings would have
been more than declined; charity resented.
The native American poor never lose their delicacy or pride; hence,
though unreduced to the physical degradation of the European pauper,
they yet suffer more in mind than the poor of any other people in the
world. Those peculiar social sensibilities nourished by our peculiar
political principles, while they enhance the true dignity of a
prosperous American, do but minister to the added wretchedness of the
unfortunate; first, by prohibiting their acceptance of what little
random relief charity may offer; and, second, by furnishing them with
the keenest appreciation of the smarting distinction between their
ideal of universal equality and their grindstone experience of the
practical misery and infamy of poverty--a misery and infamy which is,
ever has been, and ever will be, precisely the same in India, England,
and America.
Under pretense that my journey called me forthwith, I bade the
dame good-by; shook her cold hand; looked my last into her blue,
resigned eye, and went out into the wet. But cheerless as it was,
and damp, damp, damp--the heavy atmosphere charged with all sorts
of incipiencies--I yet became conscious by the suddenness of the
contrast, that the house air I had quitted was laden down with that
peculiar deleterious quality, the height of which--insufferable to some
visitants--will be found in a poorhouse ward.
This ill-ventilation in winter of the rooms of the poor--a thing,
too, so stubbornly persisted in--is usually charged upon them as
their disgraceful neglect of the most simple means to health. But the
instinct of the poor is wiser than we think. The air which ventilates,
likewise _cools_. And to any shiverer, ill-ventilated warmth is better
than well-ventilated cold. Of all the preposterous assumptions of
humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on
the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
* * * * *
"Blandmour," said I that evening, as after tea I sat on his comfortable
sofa, before a blazing fire, with one of his two ruddy little children
on my knee, "you are not what may rightly be called a rich man; you
have a fair competence; no more. Is it not so? Well then, I do not
include _you_, when I say, that if ever a rich man speaks prosperously
to me of a Poor Man, I shall set it down as--I won't mention the word."