ride from Sophy's home; in a good, old-fashioned farm-house, with green
moss growing out of the sloping roof, shaded by trees that looked a
century old. It is autumn there now; so you see on the cellar door and
under the front windows, crooked necked squashes and round yellow
pumpkins, mellowing in the warm sunbeams. Strings of dried apples are
festooned from chamber windows; and paper bags of catnip and spearmint
and thoroughwort and penny-royal and mullen hang drying on the garret
walls.
On "the buttery" shelves are broad pans of fresh, new milk, crusted
with cream that would make a New-Yorker stare; and great round cheeses,
and little pats of golden butter, stamped with a rose, and jars of
pickled cucumbers, and pots of preserved plums, and peaches, and
barberries, tied down with tissue brandy papers; and loaves of "riz
cake," and plates of doughnuts, and pans of apple dowdy, beside an
earthen jar of rich English plum cake.
Then, there's the sitting room, where the bright sun shone in, on a
picture of General Washington, and a sampler of Grandma Scott's,
representing a woman crying over a tombstone shaded by a pea-green
willow; and black profile likenesses of all the Scott family cut by a
traveling artist, hanging in spots over the fire place; and an
old-fashioned clock, standing guard in the corner, with the picture of
the rising sun on it, and Grandpa's spectacles, and loose copies of the
"Scott-town Daily Bulletin" tucked in round the wood work at the sides;
and great, comfortable-looking arm-chairs, with patch cushions; and a
sideboard with a silver pitcher on it, presented to Grandpa Scott by
the Agricultural Society and a china mug with a gold rim round it, and
"Betsey" on the side, given by the minister to Grandma Scott when she
was a little girl, for learning her catechism right; and a great big
china closet, with a glass door, to show off the rows of china cups and
saucers and flowered plates, all ready if the minister or the President
should come to tea.
Then, out of doors, wasn't there a great barn for the children to play
in?--with piles of hay, and ladders reaching up to the roof; and old
Dobbin nibbling and munching oats in his stall; and Brindle, and her
little two-day old, red and white calf cuddled down in a straw bed in
the corner; and the little field mice darting over the barn floor; and
the swallows twittering overhead among the beams and rafters; and the
old grindstone that the children liked to turn; and the scythe and
pitchfork that Grandpa charged them "not even to look at;" and the
yellow ears of corn peeping out of their dry husks, in a pile in the
corner, and the old rooster strutting round it, (followed by his hen
wives,) now and then stopping short, with one foot lifted up, and
cocking his eye at them from under his red cap, as much as to say,
"Stir if you dare, till I give the signal!" Oh, I can tell you, that
barn was a grand old place to play in, to frolic in, or to read and
think in.
Then, there was the pig-stye under it, with such lazy great pigs, and
such frisky little ones, with their tails curled up so tight that they
lifted their hind legs right up, jumping round and tumbling heels over
head over their mother, who lay half-buried in a mud-puddle, winking
her pink eyes at the bright sun, and looking just as happy as if there
wasn't a butcher in the world, or as if "the Governor and council"
wouldn't sign her little piggies' death warrant with the Thanksgiving
proclamation.
Thanksgiving! Oh, wasn't _that_ an affair? Grandma Scott would mount
her silver-bowed spectacles, strip her arms to this elbows, tie on a
check apron, pin up her cap strings, and stew pumpkins and squashes and
apples and quinces, and pound spices, and chop meat and suet, and roll
out pie-crust, and heat the oven, and turn out so many pies and tarts
and "pan-dowdies," and loaves of cake, that it would make your apron
strings grow tight just to look at them!
Then, the first thing the hens in the barn-yard knew, _they didn't know
anything_! but lay on the kitchen table with their yellow boots kicked
up in the air, waiting to be singed, stuffed, and skewered. Poor
things, they had laid their last egg, and swallowed their last kernel
of corn, every rooster's daughter of 'em!
What a party of horses stamped their iron shoes in Grandpa Scott's barn
on Thanksgiving morning! What a party of little children in bright
autumn-leaf dresses and white aprons, went scampering through the
house! What a fuss they all made over the littlest baby! What a fire
(big enough to roast an ox whole) blazed in the great, wide,
sitting-room fireplace!
How Grandpa Scott walked round, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry,
patting this one on the head, chucking the other under the chin, and
tossing a third up to the wall. How he looked all round, with his arms
a-kimbo, and said if any grandpa in the United States had a prettier
set of grandchildren than that, he'd like to see them; and how Grandma
said, "Pshaw! Grandpa," because she was so proud of them herself that
she didn't know what else to say!
And how Grandma looked as if she never would grow old, with her nice
lace cap, and her own brown hair, with scarce a silver thread in it,
curling round her happy face; and how Grandpa would whisper slily to
the boys, "After all, your mother is handsomer than any child she ever
had!"
How contented and satisfied Grandmamma looked, sitting at the head of
her Thanksgiving table; plenty of chickens and turkeys boiled and
roasted before her. What a time she had getting all the little
Scott-ites seated to her mind, and napkins tucked properly under each
chubby chin; how she _would_ carve the turkey herself, because, when
Grandpa got busy talking, he cut off the wings before he did the legs!
How she insisted upon "all just tasting some of that chicken-pie," when
it was quite impossible to stow away another mouthful, because "she had
no idea of making it for nothing."
How she would give the little wee baby a "wish-bone," though it could
not hold it one minute in its limpsy little fingers; and how she would
keep on passing round nuts, and oranges, and grapes, and apples, and
wonder what _had_ become of all their appetites.
And then how all the family would go back into the sitting-room after
dinner; and how Tom, the family "Mozart," would sing "Home, Sweet
Home;" and how Grandma Scott would rub her eyes with her handkerchief,
and declare that the room smoked! And how all the grown-up boys and
girls would begin to look hysterical; and how Maggie, who believed in
"a time to dance," would jump up and seize sober Uncle Walter by the
waist, and waltz round the room with him; and how Grandmamma would
smile and say, "Will anything _ever_ tame that girl?" Poor, merry
Maggie! she's "tame" enough now, though Grandmamma didn't live to see
the sorrow that it took to do it.
And bright-eyed Hal, and golden-haired Letty, and brave, handsome
Walter, and cherry-lipped Susy, and dimpled little Benny,--and
Grandmamma with her warm, big heart and cheerful smile; and Grandpapa
with his silvery locks, and beaming eye, and kindly hand of
welcome--oh, where are they all _now_?
Dear children,
"There is a reaper, his name is Death,
And with his sickle keen,
He cuts _the bearded grain at a breath_,
_And the flowers that grow between_."
Yes, other families have "Thanksgiving" now under the mossy eaves of
the old farm-house--other strange little voices lisp "Grandpapa,"
"Grandmamma;" and long graves and short graves are in the old
churchyard; and names look you in the face from marble tablets, that
were once at Scott Farm--_oh_, such _cherished_ "household words!"
A TRUE STORY.
People say that it is a sign of good luck to tumble up stairs. I am
glad of it; for, what with my long skirts, and what with the broken
stairway, and the pitch darkness, I did nothing _but_ tumble. However,
it's my motto _never to give up_; so, of course I gained the top at
last, and, opening a door, found myself in a garret, piled up as high
as my waist with old rags, and old papers, and old bits of bones.
"Go down, I say! Don't want you,--don't want anybody. I've got a
dreadful pain----. Go down,--there's nothing here;--go down, I say,"
growled a voice, from a pile of rags in the corner.
I passed by this growling man, without noticing him; for, in the middle
of the room was a woman, (oh, so miserable a looking creature!) with
her hands crossed hopelessly in her lap, and so buried up in the piles
of rags about the floor, that I could see nothing but her head and
shoulders.
She was quite young,--not more than twenty. She was not that old man's
wife, nor his daughter, nor his sister--but _that was her home_; and
every day she went out with him and scraped the gutters, and refuse
barrels, for old rags and papers; and then came back and emptied them
out upon the garret floor at night, to pick them over. One whole year
she had lived in that dirty den. How came she here? Listen, and I will
tell you.
Mary once lived in the country, amid sweet, green fields, and
clustering vines, and shady trees, and murmuring brooks. Her father was
a good old farmer, as happy and contented with his few acres, as if he
owned all Great Britain. Mary was his only child. Her mother died when
she was a very little girl. Mary could not even remember how she
looked; but her father often used to part her hair away from her white
forehead, and say, "You are so _like_ your mother, Mary"--and then Mary
would run to the little mirror, over the dresser, and see a sweet pair
of hazel eyes, and clusters of rich, brown hair falling over rosy
cheeks and snowy shoulders; and then she'd toss her curls, and run back
again to her father. Mary knew that her mother must have been very
pretty.
Mary had an uncle, named Ralph. He was a bad man; but Mary's father was
so good and honest himself, that it was hard to make him believe
anybody was _dis_-honest. So he lent his brother large sums of
money--(Ralph all the while promising to pay him at a certain time.) By
and by, Ralph got away all his money, and the old farm, too, with all
the cows and horses, and sheep and oxen; and then Mary's father worried
so much that it made him very sick, and he soon died, leaving poor Mary
without a penny in the world.
Uncle Ralph told her to go to the city, and he would find employment
for her. But, after he got her there, he left her, and ran off; and
poor Mary wandered about, quite heart-broken, till finally she found
some coarse work to do, for which she was paid a trifle. She worked on
with a brave heart, from day to day, for some weeks, till her employer
died; and then, poor Mary knew not what to do,--nobody would employ
her; and wicked people came and tempted her to sin, but Mary was good,
and would not listen to them; and so she had to sell her clothes, one
after another, as poor people do, till she had nothing left but the
calico dress she had on. Even her under-clothes were gone, to pay the
woman where she lived for her lodging. Alas! then poor Mary said,
despairingly, "It is of no use for me to try to be honest any
longer,"--and wicked people came again and tempted her, and nobody
said, "Mary, struggle on, and I will help you; I will give you work to
do." No; nobody said _that_; and everything looked dark and gloomy, and
she forgot the little prayer she used to say at the old farmhouse, and
made her home with wicked people; and the sweet, innocent look faded
out from her soft blue eyes, and her heart grew hard--and wrong seemed
right to poor Mary.
But sometimes Mary would wake at night, when all was still, and think
of her childhood's home, under the linden trees; and of her good old
father sitting in the porch, with the Bible on his knee, and the soft
wind gently lifting the gray hair from his temples. Then she thought of
the old church-yard, where her mother lay buried; and then she would
press her hands tightly over her eyes, as if in that way she could shut
out the torturing picture.
Mary could not bear such thoughts; they drove her almost wild. So, she
drank wine (when she could get it) to drown her misery, and passed from
one place of shelter to another, till at last she was glad of a home in
the wretched garret where I found her.
When I spoke to Mary, she would not answer me; but looked me in the
face as if she had been a stone image. She seemed to be afraid of the
old man with whom she lived in the garret. Finding, after many earnest
attempts, that I could do Mary no good, I left her; and soon after I
heard that the old man had died, and that Mary had found a great many
dollars in gold and silver, hid away in the garret, that he had earned
picking up old rags.
So, Mary had all the old miser's money. But did it bring back the
sweet, innocent look to her eyes? or take the misery out of her heart?
No, no. She'd count over her gold, and say, with a horrid laugh, "It
comes too late--too late!"
Oh! how I wished that all who give only----_good advice_! to a poor,
tempted, starving, fellow creature, could have heard those dreadful
words: "Too late,--too late!"
THE LITTLE EMIGRANTS.
Tell you a story, Harry? Do you like to hear about poor people? Well,
jump up into my lap. So;--now look straight into my eyes.
Last night I went to see some poor Italian emigrants. I threaded my way
through dirty streets and alleys, and up rickety old staircases, where
it was so dark that I had to feel my way, and where I coughed and
choked at every step, with the tobacco smoke and bad air.
At last I opened the door of a small room, lighted with one window,
where were a dozen persons--men, women and children. Some were seated
on straw beds, which were lying upon the floor; some were sitting upon
old boxes, and others were looking out the window (as if bewildered)
upon the strange scenes in the street below.
Crouched upon the hearth, was a very old woman, with thin, gray locks,
toothless gums, and bare bosom. She was stretching out her skinny hands
over a few shavings that she had kindled into a blaze; while a little
baby lay in a shawl beside her, rubbing its eyes, and crying at the
smoke that was every instant puffed into its little face. On the
opposite side of the hearth, was a little boy and girl, quite naked to
the waist from whence hung a little dirty tunic to their bare knees. A
tin pan of _raw potatoes_ lay between them, which they were slicing off
with a great knife, and greedily devouring, as if they were
half-starved.
Harry, what do you think of that? How should _you_ relish a raw potato
for supper? How should you like to come from a warm, sunny country,
into a cold, chilly climate, and be obliged to go half-naked because
you had no money to buy clothes? How should you like not to be able to
understand a word anybody there said to you, or not to be able to make
_them_ understand _you_? How should you like to have _your_ mother, or
_your_ father, go wandering round, day after day, _making signs_ to
people, to try to get employment, and have to keep giving away one
article of their poor clothing after another for a loaf of bread? How
should you like to be turned out (even of that miserable room) into the
street, some stormy night, by a cruel landlord? How should you like to
see _your mother_ sit down on a door step, in the dark, dark night, and
droop her weary head upon her bosom and _die_?
Oh, Harry! all that had happened to the poor little boy and girl who
were eating raw potatoes at the hearth. They were poor little orphans,
and that old woman was their grandmother. They had all wandered about,
from place to place, ever since they left the ship that brought them
out.
They were pretty children, with great dark eyes, and curly hair, and
such a bright smile when we spoke kindly to them. Their grandmother was
all they had now to love; and she, poor woman, couldn't live long to
take care of them, for the cold, and exposure, and anxiety, had almost
killed her, too. So, she felt very anxious about what would become of
little Pietro and Annita, when she was dead; and she kept patting them
on the head, as if she was determined to make them as happy as possible
while she lived.
Well, do you know, Harry, it struck me that Mrs. ----, who lives in
New-York, might like to adopt the little orphans. She has no children
of her own, and she loves children. That's why I took her with me to
see the poor emigrants last night.
How she _did_ cry when she saw the poor things eating raw potatoes! She
turned round to me, and said, "Fanny, I must have those children. I'll
take them right home, and I'll ----" then she couldn't stop to tell me
the rest, but ran up to the grandmother, and asked her, in Italian, if
she might not have Pietro and Annita.
At first, the poor old grandmother looked at them both, and said she
couldn't give them up. Then she looked round that dismal room, and drew
her torn shawl up over her shoulders; and then she called them both to
her, and hugged and kissed them; and then, with the tears rolling down
her cheeks, she took them by the hand and led them up to Mrs. ----, and
told her to be "a kind mamma to them."
But poor little Pietro and Annita clung to their grandmother, and
kissed her wrinkled face, and hung round her neck, and hid their little
curly heads in her lap, for they had seen so many strange faces, and so
much misery, that it had made them as shy as little rabbits, and they
were afraid to venture away from grandmother. Mrs. ---- spoke to them
in Italian, and tried to coax them with promises of all sorts of pretty
things. But it was of no use; they only shook their little curly heads,
and ran back to their dear old grandma, who patted them both, and
laughed and cried together.
Then, Mrs. ---- said "she would take grandma, too:" and that she should
help her to take care of Annita and Pietro. When the little rogues
heard this, they wiped away their tears, and smiled, and showed their
little white, glittering teeth, and kissed Mrs. ----'s hands, and said,
"We will go."
So, we got a carriage, and took them all in, to Mrs. ----'s house in
Fourth street, where they were washed, and dressed, and ate some nice
hot supper; and before I came away, they were asleep in a cunning
little trundle-bed, with their little curly heads nestled on the same
pillow, and their little cheeks close together, and just as rosy as if
they had never shivered, half naked, in that old smoky room.
And Mrs. ----'s husband, who is an artist, stood there over them, with
his pencil in his fingers, taking a sketch of their little Italian
faces; and by and by he will finish a beautiful picture of Pietro and
Annita, in the old ragged dresses in which they were found; and if he
paints their little dimpled shoulders and cunning little legs and feet
half as pretty as they really are, I know you will say with me, that
the "Little Emigrants" are worth looking at, and _worth loving_.
ALL ABOUT THE DOLANS.
Tobacco! tobacco! If there's anything I hate worse than a dandy, it is
tobacco. Such a headache as I have this morning, all for that vile pipe
that Bridget Dolan's husband was smoking, when I went over to see her.
Charley, I believe if an Irishman hadn't a potato to put in his
blarney-ing mouth, he would own a pipe and a puppy. Jim Dolan had both.
Now, Bridget Dolan was full clever enough to have been a born Yankee,
and, of course, was a great deal too good for Jim Dolan. She had more
children than you could count, if you were in a hurry, and a baby in
her arms, year in and year out. For all that, she is never out of
patience trying to keep their elbows and knees and toes in, and make up
for what Jim wastes in smoking and drinking. I verily believe Bridget
would fight anybody who said he was not the best husband in the
world,--black and blue spots on her arms to the contrary. Well, if she
has patience to put up with it, it is no affair of yours or mine; all I
have to say is, that her name ought to be Job, instead of Dolan.
Last night I thought I would go over to see her; so, I lifted up my
dress and waded through the alley, and after getting away from a
drunken woman, who insisted upon having my bonnet, I reached Bridget's
door in safety.
There they were, all in a heap, as usual,--Michael and Johnny, and
Sammy and Pat, and Fanny and Katy, and Mike and the baby. Bridget's
face shone like a new milk-pan, when I opened the door (she knows I
pity her); she flew round and got me a wooden chair, scrubbed the
baby's face with her apron, put one hand on Mike's hair to make it lie
down, sent Snip, the dog, yelping under the bed, and asked me how I
did; while Jim knocked the ashes out of his pipe, twitched a lock of
hair that hung over his forehead, and scraped out his hind foot, by way
of a bow.
Presently Johnny began to whisper to Sammy, and Sammy whispered to
Mike, and Mike whispered to his mother; and then his mother got up and
gave them something out of the closet, which they came and laid in my
lap, with their eyes shining like a cat's in the dark. And when I held
it up to the light, it turned out to be two new jackets, one for Sammy
and one for Johnny, that their good, thrifty mother had made out of an
old coat that somebody had given her.
Of course, I admired them; and of course, I buttoned the little boys up
in them; and of course, they strutted round, as smart as little
corporals; and Sammy shook his red head, and said he would "like to
hear Brian Doherty call him a beggar _now_!"
Bridget smiled, and said, "It takes so little to make the poor lads
happy;" and then, Johnny pulled at my gown again, and pointed up in the
corner, and right between the windows, where nearly every pane of glass
was broken out, stood a brand new cooking stove, with all its shining
pots and pans and kettles, set in order on the top, as if the most
magnificent dinner that ever was dreamed of, was hissing and stewing
and broiling and baking and roasting inside.
As to Sammy, he lifted up all the lids, and poked his nose in, as if he
could already smell the dinner. Mike spread out his little blue hands,
as if _some time or other_ they would get warm over it; Johnny
shouldered the poker and showed me how they were going to rattle the
coal out when somebody should give mother work enough to earn money to
buy it, and the baby got well enough to let her do it. Then Sammy held
the light, and we all walked in a procession, round and round the
stove, and voted it a most magnificent affair.
But how did they get it? That's what I wanted to know. Stoves cost
money. Sammy saw I was dying to know, so he whispered in my ear, loud
enough to be heard in South America, "Mammy earned it shaking carpets,
_she_ did."
I turned round and looked at Jim Dolan. If I could have had my own way,
I would liked to have put a petticoat and a bonnet on him, and marched
him up to the looking-glass!--a great, able-bodied, idle six-footer! I
don't think much of a man that will _let his wife support him_. Do you?
All the way home I was thinking over what poor Bridget said: "It takes
so little to make the poor lads happy." I want you to think of that,
children, when you pout because the potato is not put on the right side
of your plate; or, because little Minnie has climbed into your chair at
the table; or, because the apple dumplings are not sweet enough for
your dainty little tooth; or, because the tailoress put six buttons
instead of seven, on your new overcoat.
Johnny and Sammy would toss their caps up in the air and go wild with
joy, if they had all the nice things you have. Poor little fellows! I
loved them, because they were so proud of their mother. Oh, children!
there's nothing in the wide earth like a mother. All the friends in the
world couldn't make up to you for her loss. There's no arm but God's so
true and safe to lean upon; there's no heart but His so full of love
and pity, so long-suffering and forgiving.
Love your mother, little ones.
FRONTIER LIFE:
OR,
MITTY MOORE.
"Frontier life!" I think I hear my little readers echo, knitting their
brows; "frontier life,--I wish FANNY FERN wouldn't write about things
we don't understand."
Suppose I should tell you a story to _make_ you understand it? How
would you like that?
Mitty Moore's father took it into his head that _he_ should like
frontier life. So he traveled hundred and hundreds of miles--way off
where the sun goes down, to find a place in which to settle. The roads
were rough and bad. Sometimes it would be a long while before they
reached a place where travelers could get drink and food; and Mitty's
little bones would ache, and she began to think with "Paddy," that the
end of the journey was cut off.
At last Mr. Moore found a place to his mind; and they all halted, with
the old baggage wagon, in the woods; and Mitty, and her little brothers
and sisters, jumped out and stretched their limbs, and looked way up
into the great tall trees to try to see the tops, which seemed to
pierce the clouds.