“Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments to Mr. Langdon and requests
the pleasure of his company at a social entertainment on Wednesday
evening next.
“Elm St. Monday.”
On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, with a large “S” at the
top, and an embossed border. Envelop adherent, not sealed. Addressed
LANGDON ESQ.
Present.
Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son of the Colonel,--the H. of
course standing for the paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the father,
and reduced to its initial to please the mother, she having a marked
preference for Frederic. Boy directed to wait for an answer.
“Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. Colonel
Sprowle's polite invitation for Wednesday evening.”
On plain paper, sealed with an initial.
In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard had noticed a large house
of some pretensions to architectural display, namely, unnecessarily
projecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, wooden mouldings at
various available points, and a grandiose arched portico. It looked a
little swaggering by the side of one or two of the mansion-houses that
were not far from it, was painted too bright for Mr. Bernard's taste,
had rather too fanciful a fence before it, and had some fruit-trees
planted in the front-yard, which to this fastidious young gentleman
implied a defective sense of the fitness of things, not promising
in people who lived in so large a house, with a mushroom roof and a
triumphal arch for its entrance.
This place was known as “Colonel Sprowle's villa,” (genteel
friends,)--as “the elegant residence of our distinguished
fellow-citizen, Colonel Sprowle,” (Rockland Weekly Universe,)--as “the
neew haouse,” (old settlers,)--as “Spraowle's Folly,” (disaffected
and possibly envious neighbors,)--and in common discourse, as “the
Colonel's.”
Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's
Militia, was a retired “merchant.” An India merchant he might, perhaps,
have been properly called; for he used to deal in West India goods, such
as coffee, sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,--also in tea, salt
fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried fruit, agricultural
“p'doose” generally, industrial products, such as boots and shoes,
and various kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end of the
establishment in calicoes and other stuffs,--to say nothing of
miscellaneous objects of the most varied nature, from sticks of candy,
which tempted in the smaller youth with coppers in their fists, up to
ornamental articles of apparel, pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged
Bibles, stationery, in short, everything which was like to prove
seductive to the rural population. The Colonel had made money in trade,
and also by matrimony. He had married Sarah, daughter and heiress of the
late Tekel Jordan, Esq., an old miser, who gave the town-clock, which
carries his name to posterity in large gilt letters as a generous
benefactor of his native place. In due time the Colonel reaped the
reward of well-placed affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in,
he thought he had money enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out
his “store,” called in some dialects of the English language shop, and
his business.
Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had
nothing particular to do. Country people with money enough not to have
to work are in much more danger than city people in the same condition.
They get a specific look and character, which are the same in all the
villages where one studies them. They very commonly fall into a routine,
the basis of which is going to some lounging-place or other, a bar-room,
a reading-room, or something of the kind. They grow slovenly in dress,
and wear the same hat forever. They have a feeble curiosity for news
perhaps, which they take daily as a man takes his bitters, and then fall
silent and think they are thinking. But the mind goes out under this
regimen, like a fire without a draught; and it is not very strange,
if the instinct of mental self-preservation drives them to
brandy-and-water, which makes the hoarse whisper of memory musical for
a few brief moments, and puts a weak leer of promise on the features of
the hollow-eyed future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet
by his wife, and though it had happened to him once or twice to come
home rather late at night with a curious tendency to say the same
thing twice and even three times over, it had always been in very cold
weather,--and everybody knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of
glasses of wine in a warm room and go suddenly out into the cold air.
Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age at
which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have come out,
and thereafter are considered to be in company.
“There's one piece o' goods,” said the Colonel to his wife, “that we
ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That 's Matildy. I
don't mean to set HER up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick of a
dozen.”
“She 's never seen anybody yet,” said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a
certain project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. “Let's have
a party, and give her a chance to show herself and see some of the young
folks.”
The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he thought, naturally enough,
that the party was his own suggestion, because his remark led to the
first starting of the idea. He entered into the plan, therefore, with a
feeling of pride as well as pleasure, and the great project was resolved
upon in a family council without a dissentient voice. This was the
party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. The town had been full
of it for a week. “Everybody was asked.” So everybody said that was
invited. But how in respect of those who were not asked? If it had been
one of the old mansion-houses that was giving a party, the boundary
between the favored and the slighted families would have been known
pretty well beforehand, and there would have been no great amount of
grumbling. But the Colonel, for all his title, had a forest of poor
relations and a brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had scrambled
up to fortune, and now the time was come when he must define his new
social position.
This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive
alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration of
war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant minority,
invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party, and a great majority, uninvited,
of which the fraction just on the border line between recognized
“gentility” and the level of the ungloved masses was in an active state
of excitement and indignation.
“Who is she, I should like to know?” said Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's
wife. “There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally
Jordan was, if she had managed to pick up a merchant. Other folks could
have married merchants, if their families was n't as wealthy as them
old skinflints that willed her their money,” etc., etc. Mrs. Saymore
expressed the feeling of many beside herself. She had, however, a
special right to be proud of the name she bore. Her husband was own
cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue (who write the name Seymour,
and claim to be of the Duke of Somerset's family, showing a clear
descent from the Protector to Edward Seymour, (1630,)--then a jump that
would break a herald's neck to one Seth Saymore,(1783,)--from whom to
the head of the present family the line is clear again). Mrs. Saymore,
the tailor's wife, was not invited, because her husband mended clothes.
If he had confined himself strictly to making them, it would have put a
different face upon the matter.
The landlord of the Mountain House and his lady were invited to Mrs.
Sprowle's party. Not so the landlord of Pollard's Tahvern and his lady.
Whereupon the latter vowed that they would have a party at their house
too, and made arrangements for a dance of twenty or thirty couples, to
be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to this “Social Ball” were soon
circulated, and, being accessible to all at a moderate price, admission
to the “Elegant Supper” included, this second festival promised to be as
merry, if not as select, as the great party.
Wednesday came. Such doings had never been heard of in Rockland as went
on that day at the “villa.” The carpet had been taken up in the long
room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano
had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to
make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even
colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the
family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's black suit fitted
exceedingly well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours to
advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk was considered superb; the
eldest son of the family, Mr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately
and elegantly “Geordie,” voted himself “stunnin'”; and even the small
youth who had borne Mr. Bernard's invitation was effective in a new
jacket and trousers, buttony in front, and baggy in the reverse
aspect, as is wont to be the case with the home-made garments of inland
youngsters.
Great preparations had been made for the refection which was to be part
of the entertainment. There was much clinking of borrowed spoons, which
were to be carefully counted, and much clicking of borrowed china, which
was to be tenderly handled, for nobody in the country keeps those vast
closets full of such things which one may see in rich city-houses. Not
a great deal could be done in the way of flowers, for there were no
greenhouses, and few plants were out as yet; but there were paper
ornaments for the candlesticks, and colored mats for the lamps, and
all the tassels of the curtains and bells were taken out of those
brown linen bags, in which, for reasons hitherto undiscovered, they are
habitually concealed in some households. In the remoter apartments every
imaginable operation was going on at once,--roasting, boiling, baking,
beating, rolling, pounding in mortars, frying, freezing; for there was
to be ice-cream to-night of domestic manufacture;--and in the midst
of all these labors, Mrs. Sprowle and Miss Matilda were moving about,
directing and helping as they best might, all day long. When the evening
came, it might be feared they would not be in just the state of mind and
body to entertain company.
--One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a
billionaire.--“Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine
to-day.” “Biens, Madame.” Not a word or thought more about it, but get
home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of
your own guests.--“Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from
to-night,--five hundred invitations--there is the list.” The day comes.
“Madam, do you remember you have your party tonight?” “Why, so I have!
Everything right? supper and all?” “All as it should be, Madam.”
“Send up Victorine.” “Victorine, full toilet for this evening,--pink,
diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven. Allez.”--Billionism, or
even millionism, must be a blessed kind of state, with health and clear
conscience and youth and good looks,--but most blessed is this, that
it takes off all the mean cares which give people the three wrinkles
between the eyebrows, and leaves them free to have a good time and make
others have a good time, all the way along from the charity that tips
up unexpected loads of wood before widows' houses, and leaves foundling
turkeys upon poor men's door-steps, and sets lean clergymen crying at
the sight of anonymous fifty-dollar bills, to the taste which orders a
perfect banquet in such sweet accord with every sense that everybody's
nature flowers out full--blown in its golden--glowing, fragrant
atmosphere.
--A great party given by the smaller gentry of the interior is a kind
of solemnity, so to speak. It involves so much labor and anxiety,--its
spasmodic splendors are so violently contrasted with the homeliness of
every-day family-life,--it is such a formidable matter to break in the
raw subordinates to the manege of the cloak-room and the table,--there
is such a terrible uncertainty in the results of unfamiliar culinary
operations,--so many feuds are involved in drawing that fatal line
which divides the invited from the uninvited fraction of the local
universe,--that, if the notes requested the pleasure of the guests'
company on “this solemn occasion,” they would pretty nearly express the
true state of things.
The Colonel himself had been pressed into the service. He had pounded
something in the great mortar. He had agitated a quantity of sweetened
and thickened milk in what was called a cream-freezer. At eleven
o'clock, A. M., he retired for a space. On returning, his color was
noted to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a disposition to be
jocular with the female help,--which tendency, displaying itself in
livelier demonstrations than were approved at head-quarters, led to his
being detailed to out-of-door duties, such as raking gravel, arranging
places for horses to be hitched to, and assisting in the construction of
an arch of wintergreen at the porch of the mansion.
A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the toiling females from time
to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while all these
operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with inspecting
the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in the phrases
commonly employed by genteel young men,--for he had perused an odd
volume of “Verdant Green,” and was acquainted with a Sophomore from
one of the fresh-water colleges. “Go it on the feed!” exclaimed this
spirited young man. “Nothin' like a good spread. Grub enough and good
liquor, that's the ticket. Guv'nor'll do the heavy polite, and let me
alone for polishin' off the young charmers.” And Mr. Geordie looked
expressively at a handmaid who was rolling gingerbread, as if he were
rehearsing for “Don Giovanni.”
Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene of
their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities. The tables
had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles were
displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, and the
ice-cream had frozen.
At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the front
parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps. Some were good-humored enough
and took the hint of a lighted match at once. Others were as vicious as
they could be,--would not light on any terms, any more than if they were
filled with water, or lighted and smoked one side of the chimney, or
spattered a few sparks and sulked themselves out, or kept up a
faint show of burning, so that their ground glasses looked as feebly
phosphorescent as so many invalid fireflies. With much coaxing and
screwing and pricking, a tolerable illumination was at last achieved.
At eight there was a grand rustling of silks, and Mrs. and Miss Sprowle
descended from their respective bowers or boudoirs. Of course they were
pretty well tired by this time, and very glad to sit down,--having the
prospect before them of being obliged to stand for hours. The Colonel
walked about the parlor, inspecting his regiment of lamps. By and by Mr.
Geordie entered.
“Mph! mph!” he sniffed, as he came in. “You smell of lamp-smoke here.”
That always galls people,--to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke or
close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive. The Colonel
raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking, and tongued a few anathemas
inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three wicks that burned
higher than the rest.
Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks
upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something
brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the
baggy reverse of his more essential garment.
“Hush!” said Mrs. Sprowle,--“there 's the bell!”
Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and
altogether at ease.--False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,--“loaned,” as
the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor.
“Better late than never!” said the Colonel, “let me heft them spoons.”
Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had been
bewitched out of her.
“I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready,” said she, “before any of the folks
has come.”
They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous they
got! and how their senses were sharpened!
“Hark!” said Miss Matilda,--“what 's that rumblin'?”
It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any
other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, and
poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a crackling and
grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are waiting for
those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the tone of the
gravel-crackling.
“Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'! Mother! mother!”
Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the first
set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun.
“Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala 's come in
that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!”
Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this
observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of
attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in
the attiring-room, up one flight.
“How fine everything is in the great house!” said Mrs. Crane,--“jest
look at the picters!”
“Matildy Sprowle's drawin's,” said Ada Azuba, the eldest daughter.
“I should think so,” said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a
wide-awake girl, who had n't been to school for nothing, and performed a
little on the lead pencil herself. “I should like to know whether that's
a hay-cock or a mountain!”
Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome,
executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow
harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the
kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour.
Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified with these
productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the present
instance.
“I guess we won't go down jest yet,” said Mrs. Crane, “as folks don't
seem to have come.”
So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its
conveniences.
“Mahogany four-poster;--come from the Jordans', I cal'la,te. Marseilles
quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,--jest put up,--o'
purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.--What a nice washbowl!”
(Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red finger.) “Stone
chaney.--Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and here's a scent-bottle.
Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the glass, and scent your
pocket-handkerchers.”
And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the eau de Cologne
of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior to the
German article.
It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and the
next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper of
the Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was
directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband to
the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their outside
coats and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three Miss
Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean Institute, and Mrs.
Peckham, and more after them, until at last the ladies' dressing-room
got so full that one might have thought it was a trap none of them could
get out of. In truth, they all felt a little awkwardly. Nobody wanted
to be first to venture down-stairs. At last Mr. Silas Peckham thought it
was time to make a move for the parlor, and for this purpose presented
himself at the door of the ladies' dressing-room.
“Lorindy, my dear!” he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham,--“I think there can be
no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs.”
Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by the
black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and the two
took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was broken, and
the dressing-room began to empty itself into the spacious, lighted
apartments below.
Mr. Silas Peckham slid into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, like a
shad convoying a jelly-fish.
“Good-evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. How 's
your haalth, Colonel Sprowle?”
“Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are well.
Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've laid out to
have everything in good shape,--spared no trouble nor ex”--
“pence,”--said Silas Peckham.
Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the
Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished,
with a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women keep
giving a horse when they get a chance to drive one.
Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their
entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and propriety
of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small shop for hats
and boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had carried it in the
affirmative.--How terribly the poor old green de-laine did cut up in the
blaze of so many lamps and candles.
--Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to
your first great party, how little you know the nature of the ceremony
in which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not these
garlands and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is
not this music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows about you,
meant solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen
summers, now for the first time swimming unto the frothy, chatoyant,
sparkling, undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, and
white-armed, flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves beneath
the lustres that make the false summer of the drawing-room?
Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; the
court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will be at
its bar.
There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the
Chambre Ardente, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with lamps,
and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of young maidens
is the blazing ball-room. What have they full-dressed you, or rather
half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look pretty, of course!
Why have they hung a chandelier above you, flickering all over with
flames, so that it searches you like the noonday sun, and your deepest
dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give brilliancy to the gay scene,
no doubt!--No, my clear! Society is inspecting you, and it finds
undisguised surfaces and strong lights a convenience in the process.
The dance answers the purpose of the revolving pedestal upon which the
“White Captive” turns, to show us the soft, kneaded marble, which looks
as if it had never been hard, in all its manifold aspects of living
loveliness. No mercy for you, my love! Justice, strict justice, you
shall certainly have,--neither more nor less. For, look you, there are
dozens, scores, hundreds, with whom you must be weighed in the balance;
and you have got to learn that the “struggle for life” Mr. Charles
Darwin talks about reaches to vertebrates clad in crinoline, as well
as to mollusks in shells, or articulates in jointed scales, or anything
that fights for breathing-room and food and love in any coat of fur or
feather! Happy they who can flash defiance from bright eyes and snowy
shoulders back into the pendants of the insolent lustres!
--Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections; and no young girl
ever did, or ever will, thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under
her plainly parted hair and the green de-laine moulded itself in those
unmistakable lines of natural symmetry in which Nature indulges a small
shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well as a wholesale dealer's young
ladies. She would have liked a new dress as much as any other girl, but
she meant to go and have a good time at any rate.
The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the
Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which
many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun like a
summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming continuous, and
occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and then a broad-chested
laugh from some Captain or Major or other military personage,--for it
may be noted that all large and loud men in the unpaved districts bear
military titles.
Deacon Soper came up presently, and entered into conversation with
Colonel Sprowle.
“I hope to see our pastor present this evenin',” said the Deacon.
“I don't feel quite sure,” the Colonel answered. “His dyspepsy has been
bad on him lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence permittin',
it would be agreeable to him to take a part in the exercises of the
evenin'; but I mistrusted he did n't mean to come. To tell the truth,
Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don't like the idee of dancin', and some
of the other little arrangements.”
“Well,” said the Deacon, “I know there's some condemns dancin'. I've
heerd a good deal of talk about it among the folks round. Some have it
that it never brings a blessin' on a house to have dancin' in it. Judge
Tileston died, you remember, within a month after he had his great ball,
twelve year ago, and some thought it was in the natur' of a judgment.
I don't believe in any of them notions. If a man happened to be struck
dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball,” (the Colonel loosened his
black stock a little, and winked and swallowed two or three times,) “I
should n't call it a judgment,--I should call it a coincidence. But I 'm
a little afraid our pastor won't come. Somethin' or other's the matter
with Mr. Fairweather. I should sooner expect to see the old Doctor come
over out of the Orthodox parsonage-house.”
“I've asked him,” said the Colonel.
“Well?” said Deacon Soper.
“He said he should like to come, but he did n't know what his people
would say. For his part, he loved to see young folks havin' their sports
together, and very often felt as if he should like to be one of 'em
himself. 'But,' says I, 'Doctor, I don't say there won't be a little
dancin'.' 'Don't!' says he, 'for I want Letty to go,' (she's his
granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,) 'and Letty 's mighty fond
of dancin'. You know,' says the Doctor, 'it is n't my business to settle
whether other people's children should dance or not.' And the Doctor
looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the
young one he was talkin' about. He 's got blood in him, the old Doctor
has. I wish our little man and him would swop pulpits.”
Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel's face, as if to see
whether he was in earnest.
Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group.
“Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?” asked Mr. Silas
Peckham.
Mrs. Sprowle replied, “that there would be lemonade and srub for those
that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to
understand that he did n't mean to set in judgment on the marriage in
Canaan, and that those that didn't like srub and such things would find
somethin' that would suit them better.”
Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain air of restrained
cheerfulness. The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms
just then. Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing
the experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid alternation,
greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed conversation chopped
very small, like the contents of a mince-pie, or meat-pie, as it is more
forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages lying along the unsalted
streams. All at once it grew silent just round the door, where it had
been loudest,--and the silence spread itself like a stain, till
it hushed everything but a few corner-duets. A dark, sad-looking,
middle-aged gentleman entered the parlor, with a young lady on his
arm,--his daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly unlike him in
feature, and of the same dark complexion.
“Dudley Venner,” exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but
half-suppressed tones.
“What can have brought Dudley out to-night?” said Jefferson Buck, a
young fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which
he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill.
“How do I know, Jeff?” was Miss Susy's answer. Then, after a
pause,--“Elsie made him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he knows
all about 'em both, they say.”
Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland, was a shrewd old man,
who looked pretty keenly into his patients through his spectacles,
and pretty widely at men, women, and things in general over them.
Sixty-three years old,--just the year of the grand climacteric. A bald
crown, as every doctor should have. A consulting practitioner's mouth;
that is, movable round the corners while the case is under examination,
but both corners well drawn down and kept so when the final opinion is
made up. In fact, the Doctor was often sent for to act as “caounsel,”
all over the county, and beyond it. He kept three or four horses,
sometimes riding in the saddle, commonly driving in a sulky, pretty
fast, and looking straight before him, so that people got out of the way
of bowing to him as he passed on the road. There was some talk about his
not being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old patients laughed
and looked knowing when this was spoken of.
The Doctor knew a good many things besides how to drop tinctures
and shake out powders. Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to
understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for him. He knew what a
nervous woman is, and how to manage her. He could tell at a glance when
she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium in which a rough word
is like a blow to her, and the touch of unmagnetized fingers reverses
all her nervous currents. It is not everybody that enters into the soul
of Mozart's or Beethoven's harmonies; and there are vital symphonies in
B flat, and other low, sad keys, which a doctor may know as little of as
a hurdy-gurdy player of the essence of those divine musical mysteries.
The Doctor knew the difference between what men say and what they mean
as well as most people. When he was listening to common talk, he was in
the habit of looking over his spectacles; if he lifted his head so as
to look through them at the person talking, he was busier with that
person's thoughts than with his words.
Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront the Doctor with Miss
Susy's question, for he did not look as if he were in the mood to answer
queries put by curious young people. His eyes were fixed steadily on the
dark girl, every movement of whom he seemed to follow.
She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, so unlike the girls about
her that it seemed nothing more than natural, that, when she moved, the
groups should part to let her pass through them, and that she should
carry the centre of all looks and thoughts with her. She was dressed to
please her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to the modes declared
correct by the Rockland milliners and mantua-makers. Her heavy black
hair lay in a braided coil, with a long gold pin shat through it like a
javelin. Round her neck was a golden torque, a round, cord-like chain,
such as the Gaols used to wear; the “Dying Gladiator” has it. Her
dress was a grayish watered silk; her collar was pinned with a flashing
diamond brooch, the stones looking as fresh as morning dew-drops, but
the silver setting of the past generation; her arms were bare, round,
but slender rather than large, in keeping with her lithe round figure.
On her wrists she wore bracelets: one was a circlet of enamelled scales;
the other looked as if it might have been Cleopatra's asp, with its body
turned to gold and its eyes to emeralds.
Her father--for Dudley Venner was her father--looked like a man of
culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as one
whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly anybody
except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, to look at
him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural enough
to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak of the
dark girl's which brought him there, for he had the air of a shy and
sad-hearted recluse.
It was hard to say what could have brought Elsie Venner to the party.
Hardly anybody seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all disposed to
make acquaintances. Here and there was one of the older girls from the
Institute, but she appeared to have nothing in common with them. Even in
the schoolroom, it may be remembered, she sat apart by her own choice,
and now in the midst of the crowd she made a circle of isolation round
herself. Drawing her arm out of her father's, she stood against the
wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in her eyes, at the crowd
which moved and babbled before her.
The old Doctor came up to her by and by.
“Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you here. Do tell me how you
happened to do such a good-natured thing as to let us see you at such a
great party.”
“It's been dull at the mansion-house,” she said, “and I wanted to get
out of it. It's too lonely there,--there's nobody to hate since Dick's
gone.”
The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this were an amusing bit of
pleasantry,--but he lifted his head and dropped his eyes a little, so
as to see her through his spectacles. She narrowed her lids slightly, as
one often sees a sleepy cat narrow hers,--somewhat as you may remember
our famous Margaret used to, if you remember her at all,--so that her
eyes looked very small, but bright as the diamonds on her breast. The
old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him; he did not like the
feeling, so he dropped his head and lifted his eyes and looked at her
over his spectacles again.
“And how have you all been at the mansion house?” said the Doctor.
“Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and there's nobody left but Dudley
and I and the people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody quickest,
Doctor?” Then, in a whisper, “I ran away again the other day, you know.”
“Where did you go?” The Doctor spoke in a low, serious tone.
“Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this for you.”
The Doctor started as she handed him a flower of the Atragene Americana,
for he knew that there was only one spot where it grew, and that not
one where any rash foot, least of all a thin-shod woman's foot, should
venture.
“How long were you gone?” said the Doctor.
“Only one night. You should have heard the horns blowing and the guns
firing. Dudley was frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told him she'd
had a dream, and that I should be found in Dead-Man's Hollow, with a
great rock lying on me. They hunted all over it, but they did n't find
me,--I was farther up.”
Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried while she was speaking, but
forced a pleasant professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as if
wishing to change the subject,
“Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up.
Where 's the young master? has he come yet? or is he going to be late,
with the other great folks?”
The girl turned away without answering, and looked toward the door.
The “great folks,” meaning the mansion-house gentry, were just beginning
to come; Dudley Venner and his daughter had been the first of them.
Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, as good at sixty as he was
at forty, with a youngish second wife, and one noble daughter, Arabella,
who, they said, knew as much law as her father, a stately, Portia like
girl, fit for a premier's wife, not like to find her match even in the
great cities she sometimes visited; the Trecothicks, the family of a
merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, having made himself rich enough by
the time he had reached middle life, threw down his ledger as Sylla did
his dagger, and retired to make a little paradise around him in one
of the stateliest residences of the town, a family inheritance; the
Vaughans, an old Rockland race, descended from its first settlers,
Toryish in tendency in Revolutionary times, and barely escaping
confiscation or worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating its gentility
only as far back as the Honorable Washington Dunham, M. C., but turning
out a clever boy or two that went to college; and some showy girls with
white necks and fat arms who had picked up professional husbands: these
were the principal mansion-house people. All of them had made it a point
to come; and as each of them entered, it seemed to Colonel and Mrs.
Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a more cheerful light, and that
the fiddles which sounded from the uncarpeted room were all half a tone
higher and half a beat quicker.
Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his
new duties. He looked well and that is saying a good deal; for nothing
but a gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses well,
a head set on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy,
practised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well
covered,--these advantages can make us forgive the odious sable
broadcloth suit, which appears to have been adopted by society on the
same principle that condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual and
uniform blackness. Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his
bow to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he got
a particularly gracious curtsy, and then began looking about him
for acquaintances. He found two or three faces he knew,--many more
strangers. There was Silas Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; there
was the inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the Apollinean
girls, of course, they not being recognized members of society,--but
there is one with the flame in her cheeks and the fire in her eyes, the
girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines, whom we saw entering the
schoolroom the other day. Old Judge Thornton has his eyes on her, and
the Colonel steals a look every now and then at the red brooch
which lifts itself so superbly into the light, as if he thought it a
wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself was not displeased
with the general effect of the rich-blooded schoolgirl, as she stood
under the bright lamps, fanning herself in the warm, languid air, fixed
in a kind of passionate surprise at the new life which seemed to be
flowering out in her consciousness. Perhaps he looked at her somewhat
steadily, as some others had done; at any rate, she seemed to feel that
she was looked at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly
on him, caught his own on her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and
threw in a blush involuntarily which made it more charming.
“What can I do better,” he said to himself, “than have a dance with Rosa
Milburn?” So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room and took
his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the Goddess of
Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,--whether a woman is ever
phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she exhales,--these
and other questions which relate to occult influences exercised by
certain women we will not now discuss. It is enough that Mr. Bernard
was sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly new to him, nor
unprecedented in the history of human experience, but always a
revelation when it comes over us for the first or the hundredth time,
so pale is the most recent memory by the side of the passing moment with
the flush of any new-born passion on its cheek. Remember that Nature
makes every man love all women, and trusts the trivial matter of special
choice to the commonest accident.
If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his attention, he might have
thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and
dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of
her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her studies, and so
on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's supreme quod erat
demonstrandum. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He did not
know,--but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this Eve just
within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways of the
world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of knowledge,--alive
to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere palpitating with voices
and music, as the flower of some dioecious plant which has grown in a
lone corner and suddenly unfolding its corolla on some hot-breathing
June evening, feels that the air is perfumed with strange odors and
loaded with golden dust wafted from those other blossoms with which its
double life is shared,--this almost over-womanized woman might well have
bewitched him, but that he had a vague sense of a counter-charm. It was,
perhaps, only the same consciousness that some one was looking at him
which he himself had just given occasion to in his partner. Presently,
in one of the turns of the dance, he felt his eyes drawn to a figure he
had not distinctly recognized, though he had dimly felt its presence,
and saw that Elsie Venner was looking at him as if she saw nothing else
but him. He was not a nervous person, like the poor lady-teacher, yet
the glitter of the diamond eyes affected him strangely. It seemed to
disenchant the air, so full a moment before of strange attractions. He
became silent, and dreamy, as it were. The round-limbed beauty at his
side crushed her gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the figure of
the dance together, but it was no more to him than if an old nurse
had laid her hand on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming
neglect, and her imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he
appeared unconscious of it.
“There is one of our young ladies I must speak to,” he said,--and was
just leaving his partner's side.
“Four hands all round?” shouted the first violin,--and Mr. Bernard found
himself seized and whirled in a circle out of which he could not escape,
and then forced to “cross over,” and then to “dozy do,” as the maestro
had it,--and when, on getting back to his place, he looked for Elsie
Venner, she was gone.
The dancing went on briskly. Some of the old folks looked on, others
conversed in groups and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a
little after ten o'clock. About this time there was noticed an increased
bustle in the passages, with a considerable opening and shutting of
doors. Presently it began to be whispered about that they were going to
have supper. Many, who had never been to any large party before, held
their breath for a moment at this announcement. It was rather with a
tremulous interest than with open hilarity that the rumor was generally
received.
One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten to settle. It was a point
involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least
the good report of the house,--and he had never thought to arrange it.
He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important question to
him,--in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and taking out his
bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe his forehead.
“Judge,” he said, “do you think, that, before we commence refreshing
ourselves at the tables, it would be the proper thing to--crave a--to
request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person--to ask a blessing?”
The Judge looked as grave as if he were about giving the opinion of the
Court in the great India-rubber case.
“On the whole,” he answered, after a pause, “I should think it might,
perhaps, be dispensed with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, and
it is awkward to have talking and laughing going on while blessing is
being asked. Unless a clergyman is present and makes a point of it, I
think it will hardly be expected.”
The Colonel was infinitely relieved. “Judge, will you take Mrs. Sprowle
in to supper?” And the Colonel returned the compliment by offering his
arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton.
The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following
the lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was
pretty well filled.
There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their
heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition before
a meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an oration
would now be delivered by the Colonel.
“Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen,” said the Colonel; “good
things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see before you.”
So saying he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the
table; and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the
doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit of
the tables. Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared they
would be, at the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, a
kind of relation, who had to be invited, and who came with her old,
back-country-looking string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to feel
very serious about it.
“If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over
sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather ha' staid t' home. It was a bad
sign, when folks was n't grateful for the baounties of Providence.”
The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it,
at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently
appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her
thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little
finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck,
and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an M that wanted to get
out and perished in the attempt.
The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the
more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to
their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and
offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had
commonly selected.
“A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?”
The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a sporadic
laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become epidemic.
People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to such splendid
scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so much crockery
and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of unusual viands and
beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several
looked in that direction with an anxious expression, as if something had
happened, a lady fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively fellows
come to high words.
“Young folks will be young folks,” said Deacon Soper. “No harm done.
Least said soonest mended.”
“Have some of these shell-oysters?” said the Colonel to Mrs. Trecothick.
A delicate emphasis on the word shell implied that the Colonel knew what
was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of the
east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, without a
qualifying adjective, is the pickled oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who knew
very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as is apt to be the
case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and loses his sprightliness,
replied, with the pleasantest smile in the world, that the chicken she
had been helped to was too delicate to be given up even for the greater
rarity. But the word “shell-oysters” had been overheard; and there was a
perceptible crowding movement towards their newly discovered habitat, a
large soup-tureen.
Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these recent
mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a sign to
Mrs. Peckham.
“Lorindy,” he whispered, “shell-oysters”
And ladled them out to her largely, without betraying any emotion, just
as if they had been the natural inland or pickled article.
After the more solid portion of the banquet had been duly honored, the
cakes and sweet preparations of various kinds began to get their share
of attention. There were great cakes and little cakes, cakes with
raisins in them, cakes with currants, and cakes without either; there
were brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, glazed cakes, hearts
and rounds, and jumbles, which playful youth slip over the forefinger
before spoiling their annular outline. There were mounds of blo'monje,
of the arrowroot variety,--that being undistinguishable from such as is
made with Russia isinglass. There were jellies, which had been shaking,
all the time the young folks were dancing in the next room, as if
they were balancing to partners. There were built-up fabrics, called
Charlottes, caky externally, pulpy within; there were also marangs, and
likewise custards,--some of the indolent-fluid sort, others firm, in
which every stroke of the teaspoon left a smooth, conchoidal surface
like the fracture of chalcedony, with here and there a little eye like
what one sees in cheeses. Nor was that most wonderful object of domestic
art called trifle wanting, with its charming confusion of cream and cake
and almonds and jam and jelly and wine and cinnamon and froth; nor yet
the marvellous floating-island,--name suggestive of all that is romantic
in the imaginations of youthful palates.
“It must have cost you a sight of work, to say nothin' of money, to get
all this beautiful confectionery made for the party,” said Mrs. Crane to
Mrs. Sprowle.
“Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no doubt,” said Mrs. Sprowle.
“Matilda and our girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own hands,
and we all feel some tired; but if folks get what suits 'em, we don't
begrudge the time nor the work. But I do feel thirsty,” said the
poor lady, “and I think a glass of srub would do my throat good; it's
dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham, would you be so polite as to pass me a glass
of srub?”
Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and took from the table a small
glass cup, containing a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in taste.
This was srub, a beverage in local repute, of questionable nature, but
suspected of owing its tint and sharpness to some kind of syrup derived
from the maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were similar small
cups on the table filled with lemonade, and here and there a decanter of
Madeira wine, of the Marsala kind, which some prefer to, and many more
cannot distinguish from, that which comes from the Atlantic island.
“Take a glass of wine, Judge,” said, the Colonel; “here is an article
that I rather think 'll suit you.”
The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old
Madeiras from each other, “Eclipse,” “Juno,” the almost fabulously
scarce and precious “White-top,” and the rest. He struck the nativity of
the Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened his lip.
“A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. Your
very good health.”
“Deacon Soper,” said the Colonel, “here is some Madary Judge Thornton
recommends. Let me fill you a glass of it.”
The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent Christians
who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to Timothy.
“A little good wine won't hurt anybody,” said the Deacon. “Plenty,
--plenty,--plenty. There!” He had not withdrawn his glass, while the
Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill, and now it was running
over.
--It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the
mercy of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of
nothing but C4, O2, H6. The Deacon's theology fell off several points
towards latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. He had
a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human nature
included. The little accidents of humanity, known collectively to
moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing sense of universal
brotherhood and benevolence.
“It will all come right,” the Deacon said to himself,--“I feel a joyful
conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with a blessed
peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' toward my
fellow-creturs.”
A lusty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at
that instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon the
Deacon's toes.
“Aigh! What the d' d' didos are y' abaout with them great huffs o'
yourn?” said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not
exactly that of peace and good-will to men. The lusty young fellow
apologized; but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his theology
backed round several points in the direction of total depravity.
Some of the dashing young men in stand-up collars and extensive
neckties, encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the
“Ma,dary,” and even induced some of the more stylish girls--not of the
mansion-house set, but of the tip-top two-story families--to taste a
little. Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and declared it was
“perfectly horrid,” with that aspect of veracity peculiar to their age
and sex.
About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the
mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick
had quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss
Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better adjourn
this court to the next room. There were signs of migration,--a loosening
of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to hitch on to.
“Stop!” said the Colonel. “There's something coming yet.--Ice-cream!”
The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was
only polite to stay and see it out. The word “ice-cream” was no sooner
whispered than it passed from one to another all down the tables. The
effect was what might have been anticipated. Many of the guests had
never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and to all the
two-story population of Rockland it was the last expression of the art
of pleasing and astonishing the human palate. Its appearance had been
deferred for several reasons: first, because everybody would have
attacked it, if it had come in with the other luxuries; secondly,
because undue apprehensions were entertained (owing to want of
experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and resolve itself with
alarming rapidity into puddles of creamy fluid; and, thirdly, because
the surprise would make a grand climax to finish off the banquet.
There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that
it is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of great
cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a certain
emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her work
of congelation in the face of her sultriest noon, might well inspire a
timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against the Higher
Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use of ether and
chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it is
well known that the announcement at any private rural entertainment that
there is to be ice-cream produces an immediate and profound impression.
It may be remarked, as aiding this impression, that exaggerated ideas
are entertained as to the dangerous effects this congealed food may
produce on persons not in the most robust health.
There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table,
everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and
assailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off a
slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, as if
it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side, and it
tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the Colonel.
“Permit me,” said the Judge,--and he took the knife and struck a sharp
slanting stroke which sliced off a piece just of the right size, and
offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much admired by
the company.
The tables were all alive again.
“Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream,” said Silas Peckham.
“Come, Mahaly,” said a fresh-looking young-fellow with a saucerful in
each hand, “here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a
celebration, us two.” And the old green de-lame, with the young curves
under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it
had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it.
“Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff
into your stomick?” said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, who,
finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her down
very nicely. “It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look very
rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you.”
“Carrie,” said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--“how well
you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit down
here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you young folks
do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's you or
your older sister, but I know it 's somebody I call Carrie, and that I
've known ever since.”
A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company
and broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the
direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the
person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper.
“He's chokin'! he's chokin'!” was the first exclamation,--“slap him on
the back!”
Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon felt
as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up.
“He's black in the face,” said Widow Leech, “he 's swallered somethin'
the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to him, can't
ye?”
“If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can,” said Doctor Kittredge,
in a calm tone of voice. “He's not choking, my friends,” the Doctor
added immediately, when he got sight of him.
“It 's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the
face?” said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for “nussin” sick folks,
--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor.
“It's not apoplexy,” said Dr. Kittredge.
“What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's his
poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready.”
“Do be quiet, my good woman,” said Dr. Kittredge.--“Nothing serious, I
think, Mrs. Soper. Deacon!”
The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary sound
mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an expression of
intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping his hands to his
face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in speechless agony.
At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head.
“It's all right,” said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. “The
Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That 's all. Very severe,
but not at all dangerous.”
The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the
change in iris waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had
looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened.
The Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the
congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare
species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its distribution,
had taken a large mouthful of it without the least precaution. The
consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were killing the nerves of
twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or cold ones, which would hurt
rather worse.
The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered
pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There were
different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his
complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of
propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack
of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other
folks.
The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The
mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon
followed. Mr. Bernard had stayed an hour or two, and left soon after he
found that Elsie Venner and her father had disappeared. As he passed by
the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering from one of
its upper rooms, where the lady-teacher was still waking. His heart
ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of gayety, or
what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work in her little
chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that they
were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning like a red coal; the
northern constellation was slanting downward about its central point of
flame; and while he looked, a falling star slid from the zenith and was
lost.
He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the
Season.