As the last rays of the setting sun were gilding the modest spires of
Richmond, early in the month of October, 1860, I was sitting with two
young ladies at the front parlor window of a house on Leigh Street. One
of these, Lucy Poythress, like myself, was from the county of Leicester;
or, to speak with entire exactness, her father’s residence was separated
from my grandfather’s, in that county, by a river only. She had arrived
in Richmond that morning, on a visit to her friend, Alice Carter. As the
two girls, lately school-mates, had not met for three months, and had
just risen from an excellent dinner,—that notable promoter of the
affections,—I deem it superfluous to state that they were holding each
other’s hands.
Also, they were talking.
“Oh, Lucy!” exclaimed Alice, suddenly starting up, “I had forgotten to
tell you. I have fallen in love,—that is, _nearly_. I must tell you
about it,” continued she, talking, at the same time, with her lips, her
hands, and her merry-glancing hazel eyes,—“it was so romantic!”
“Of course,” said I.
“Ah, don’t be jealous!” retorted she, coaxingly. “But you see, Lucy, one
day last week, as I was crossing the street, two squares below here, I
struck my foot against something and fell flat. A book that I carried
tumbled one way, my veil flew another, and—”
“And some pale, poetic stranger helped you to rise,” interrupted I.
“Yes; a gentleman who was meeting me just as I fell, and whose face I am
sure I had never before seen in Richmond, ran forward, lifted me up, got
me my book and veil, and, in short, he was so graceful, and his voice
was so gentle, when he said ‘Excuse me,’ as he lifted me from the
ground, that—I confess—I—” And dropping her eyes, and with an
inimitable simper on her countenance, she made as though straightening,
between thumb and forefinger, the hem of her handkerchief.
“Ah, you are the same dear old Alice still,” cried Lucy, leaning
forward, and, with laughing lips, kissing her on the cheek. “And you
fell in love with the graceful stranger?”
“Yes, indeed,—that is, as much as was becoming in a young woman of
eighteen summers. By the way, Lucy, you too have reached that dignified
age since I last saw you. Don’t you begin to feel ancient? I do. We
shall soon be old maids.”
“And the romantic stranger, in that event?” asked I. “He, I suppose,
will go hurl himself dismally off Mayo’s bridge. By the way, yonder he
comes now.”
I am aware that the barest insinuation of the kind is flouted and
scouted by the lovelier portion of mankind; but among men it is always
frankly admitted that women are not destitute of curiosity.
“Yonder he comes now,” said I, languidly, as one who had dined well. Two
lovely heads shot instantly out of the window.
“Where? where?”
“There,” said I; “that tall chap with the heavy beard, on the other side
of the street.”
“Well, upon my word,” cried Alice, “’tis the very man! How on earth did
you know it was he? You didn’t? Really and truly? How strange! Oh, if he
would only cross the street and walk past our window! There, I
believe—no—yes, here he comes across! How nice! What on earth makes
him carry his hat in his hand?”
“Is that really your graceful friend?” asked I, growing interested.
“It is certainly he; I am sure I am not mistaken.”
The Unknown was crossing the street in a very leisurely, or rather
abstracted, manner, evidently absorbed in thought,—or the lack of
it,—for extremes meet. With hat in hand and chin pressed upon his
breast, he sauntered along with the air of one who is going nowhere, and
cares not when he reaches his destination. When he reached the lamp-post
at the corner, not over twenty or thirty yards from where we stood, he
stopped, hung his hat on the back of his head, and drew from his
breast-pocket a pencil and a piece of stiff-looking paper. This he held
against the lamp-post, and appeared to write or draw.
We drew back a little from the window.
“What on earth is he going to do?” exclaimed Alice.
“He is doubtless inditing an ode,” said I, “in commemoration of last
week’s romantic interview. ‘Lines to a fallen angel,’ perhaps.” This
witticism passed unheeded.
“The man’s crazy!” said Alice.
The Unknown had thrown his head back, and, with his eyes nearly closed,
was gently tapping the air with the pencil in a kind of rhythm.
“Did you ever!” ejaculated Alice.
“Did you ever!” echoed Lucy.
“Well, I never!” mocked I.
“St!”
We drew still farther away from the window. He was going to pass us.
Pencil and paper are again in breast-pocket, hat in hand, chin upon
breast.
“Isn’t he nice and tall!”
“Yes; and what shoulders!”
“How strong he looks; and without an ounce of superfluous flesh!”
“How distinguished-looking!”
So chirruped these twain,—I, meanwhile, interjecting such interruptions
as I could think of. “No one ever says of _me_ that I haven’t an ounce
of superfluous flesh.”
“Nor ever will, unless you go as a missionary among the Feejeeans,”
retorted Alice.
You see I am rather—but no matter about me.
At the edge of the sidewalk, and nearly opposite the window at which we
were standing, was an oblong carriage-block of granite, and upon this
was seated, at this juncture, a sister of Lucy’s,—a little girl of
nearly four years of age, playing with a set of painted squares of wood,
known in the nursery as “blocks,” which had been presented to her by her
godmother, Mrs. Carter, at whose special request the little thing had
been brought to Richmond. Her country nurse was standing a few paces
distant, dressed out in her finest, airing her best country manners for
the bedazzlement of a city beau of her acquaintance (as having been
formerly of her county), a mulatto barber who had chanced to pass that
way, and had stopped for a chat about old times. The Unknown had not
observed the little girl till, in his listless way, he had sauntered to
within a few feet of her, when, catching sight of the mass of sunny
curls that poured over her neck and shoulders (her back was turned
towards him), he stopped, and seeing what her occupation was and hearing
the babbling of her little tongue as she agreed with herself, now upon
this plan, now on that, upsetting one structure almost before it was
begun for another which was to share a like fate; gazing upon this
little scene, a look of pleased interest, not unmingled with sadness,
came into his face.
“He is a married man,” said I.
“Say not so!” cried Alice, with a tragic air.
“But his wife’s dead,” I added.
“I breathe again!” intoned Alice, in the same vein.
“Oh, _Alice_!” said Lucy, with gentle reproachfulness.
“Why, of course, Lucy,” began Alice, throwing herself into an
argumentative attitude, “of course I do not really rejoice at the poor
woman’s death; but how can you expect me to grieve over a person I
never—”
“You are a greater scamp than ever,” said Lucy, laughingly stopping her
friend’s mouth with her hand.
The little architect felt that some one stood behind her, and, turning
her head and judging with that unerring infantile instinct that he was a
friend, she gave him a number of those irresistible little looks, with
which every one is familiar, half coy, half coquettish, which showed
that, young though she was, her name was woman. Ladies at her time of
life do not appreciate the necessity of introductions as preliminary to
conversation with gentlemen.
“Build me a house!” cried she to the stranger, running towards him and
looking now into his face, now at her blocks, with a smile half
expectation, half timidity.
“I build you a house? Why, certainly, little brown eyes!”—taking her
plump cheeks between his hands and gazing down into her upturned face
with a smile that was singularly tender and bright; and all the more
striking, as it gleamed forth with something of the suddenness of a
flash of sunlight bursting through a cloud. It had been easy to see,
indeed, as he approached us more nearly, that his preoccupations were
not of a pleasant character. His slightly compressed lips imparted a
shade of grimness to his look, and the mingled expression of weariness
and resolution upon his features seemed to reveal some struggle going on
in his breast.
“Well, now,” said he, taking up a few of the blocks as he seated himself
upon the stepping-stone, “what kind of a house shall we build?”
“Did you ever!” looked we, all of us!
“We-e-’ll, we-e-’ll—we’ll m-a-k-e—let me tell you—”
“Saint Paul’s Church?” suggested the stranger,—“with a great, tall
steeple!”
“N-o-o-o! People don’t live in churches! M-a-k-e me—m-a-k-e me—oh!
make me one just like our house!” cried she, with sudden triumph,
placing her hand upon her new-found friend’s shoulder, thrusting her
face almost against his, and opening wide at him her great brown eyes,
as much as to say, now we have it! And away she skipped, backwards, on
the tips of her toes, clapping her dimpled hands; chirping forth,
meanwhile, sundry joyous, inarticulate notes; which I shall not merely
say were as sweet as the song of the birds,—for they were warblings
from the heart of a happy child,—which notes, I take it, are the
loveliest that float upward into the dome of the high heavens,—and
blessed whose fingers avail to call them forth!
“Well, then,” began he, gathering together his blocks, “here are our
bricks.”
“_Bricks!_” cried she, in a voice that was almost shrill with surprise.
“Why, it is not a brick house!”
“Why, yes,” said he, carelessly glancing towards the house in which we
were.
“Lor’ me, _that’s_ not _our_ house! Did you think that was our house?
Oh, how funny!” cried she, gleefully triumphing in her superior
knowledge; then, running towards the open window, behind the curtains of
which the amused spectators of this scene had retired, “Sister Lucy!”
exclaimed she, “what do you think! This gentleman thought this was our
house, and we are just on a visit here! Sister Lucy! Sister _Lucy_!
Sister L-u-u-u-c-y!”
Not receiving any reply from that alarmed young person, who had fled
with me into one corner of the room, and with appalled look and
appealing gestures was endeavoring to check the convulsive tittering of
her friend Alice, who, in another corner, stood bowed together, weak and
weeping with suppressed laughter, the little girl turned to her friend
and said, “Sister Lucy has gone up-stairs, I reckon.”
“Thither Luthy hath dawn up-thtairs, I weckon,”—that was the way she
said it; but words so distorted, charm, as they may, when they fall,
like crumpled rose-leaves, from the fair portals of a child’s mouth, can
please the eye of a phonetic reformer only. And so with the reader’s
consent,—in fact, as a compliment to her,—I shall leave, in the main,
such transformations to her fancy.
Besides, how utterly unintelligible would be a dialogue, so printed, to
the very person for whose benefit, chiefly, this work has been
undertaken. In his illumined day, you know, infants will have ceased to
lisp.
The stranger had risen from his seat with rather a startled look, but
upon this reassuring suggestion of his little friend, resumed it.
“You love your sister Lucy ever so much, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. Mr. Whacker does, too.”
This remark produced a profound sensation upon two, certainly, of the
eavesdroppers. Lucy, who was diffidence itself, blushed to the roots of
her hair; while an uncomfortable consciousness of looking foolish took
possession of me. Alice, holding her sides, fell exhausted upon a sofa.
“Mr. who?” asked he, with a sudden look of interest which startled us
all.
“Mr. Whacker; don’t you know Mr. Whacker?”
“Maybe so; what kind of a man is he?”
“Oh, he is a nice man, and he is so funny,—he makes me nearly dead with
laughing.”
“Does your sister Lucy love this nice, funny Mr. Whacker?”
Lucy looked perfectly aghast.
“Yes, she do.”
“She do, do she?” echoed the Unknown; while ripples of merriment danced
about his singularly intense and glowing eyes, like those on the dark
waters of some deep lake.
“Did she ever tell you so?”
“Y-e-e-e-es,” replied she, doubtfully.
“Mr. Whacker, I assure you,” began Lucy, choking with mortification,
“I—”
“I forgive, though I can never forget—”
“But—”
“St!” whispered Alice; “it is as good as a play!”
“But, Alice, it’s a most outrageous—”
“Never mind,—listen!”
Meantime, we had lost a few sentences of the colloquy, which seemed to
be affording intense amusement to the Stranger.
“But what did she say?” were the first words we caught.
“She said,” began the little thing, gesticulating with her hands and
rolling her eyes,—speaking, in fact, with her whole body,—“sister
Lucy, she said—”
“Well.”
“Sister Lucy, she said Mr. Whacker was mighty fat, but he was right
pretty.”
Imagine the scene behind the curtains! The trouble was that Lucy, who
was as truthful as Epaminondas, could not deny having paid me, in
substance, this two-edged compliment. So she could only bury her face in
her hands. As for the Stranger, he actually laughed aloud.
“But do ladies always love pretty men?”
“Why, yes; I love my sweetheart, and he is pretty.”
“Your sweetheart! Have you a sweetheart?”
“Yes,” replied she, with decision and complacency.
“What’s his name?”
“I can’t tell you!”
“Do, now.”
“Oh, I _can’t_!” And she dropped her cheek on her off shoulder and shut
her eyes.
“Say, do you like candy?”
“Yes,” said she, eagerly wheeling round; “where is it?”
“Never mind. If you will tell me, I will bring you some to-morrow.”
“What’s in that paper? I ’spec’ it’s candy, right now!”
“No,” said he, smiling; “but I will bring you some to-morrow if you will
tell me.”
She stuck a finger into her mouth and hung her head.
“Red candy,” began he, “and blue candy,” he continued, nodding his head
up and down, between the varieties, with a sort of pantomimic
punctuation, “and green candy—”
Wide-eyed delight and a half-smile of eager expectation illumined the
face of the little tempted one.
“And yellow candy, and—let me see—and striped candy, and speckled
candy—and—and—and—ALL SORTS OF CANDY!”
She clasped her hands and drew a long breath.
“Will you?”
The infant that hesitates is lost.
“And tied up in most _beautiful_ paper—”
“You won’t tell Mr. Whacker?”
“No, never!!!”
In an instant the little creature had sprung towards him, seized his
head, pulled it down, pressed her lips against his ear, shot the
momentous name therein and bounded back.
“There! Give me the candy!”
“I said I should get it to-morrow. But I didn’t hear a word. Tell me
over again. There,—whisper it in my ear. Willie? Willie what?” said he,
drawing her towards him. “Ah, that is the name, is it?”
We did not hear the name, and I must suppose it was that of some near
neighbor of her father’s.
“Now, don’t tell Mr. Whacker!”
“No,” replied the stranger; but he had heard her with the outward ear
only. He sat, with drawn lids, gazing upon the pavement, and softly
biting his nails, as though solving some problem. His lips seemed to
move; and every now and then he looked, out of the corners of his eyes,
at his little companion. At last he slowly rose, but stood motionless,
with eyes fixed upon the ground.
“Oh, don’t go!” cried she, her fair, upturned face wearing a beautiful
expression of infantile affection.
And here our mysterious friend had another surprise in store for us.
For, when he saw that look, a startled expression came into his face;
and leaning forward, he scrutinized her features with a gaze so
searching that there was a kind of glare in his eyes,—so that the
little girl dropped her eyes and drew back, as though with a feeling of
dread. But the Unknown suddenly sat down beside her, and, taking one of
her hands in both his, patted it softly, and, in a voice tender as that
of a young mother, asked, “But what is _your_ name, my little cherub?”
“My name is Laura. Let’s make another house—oh, no, let’s make a boat!”
“Not now. But Laura what? What is your other name?”
“My name is Laura Poythress.”
“Laura Poythress!”
He bowed his broad shoulders till his face was almost on a level with
hers, and scanning her features intently: “Laura Poythress, Laura
Poythress,” repeated he, to himself; “and Lucy, too! and Whacker!”
We looked at each other with wide eyes.
Again the stranger rose; this time with nervous abruptness, and took a
few rapid turns up and down the pavement, close to little Laura; then
walking quickly up to her, and stooping down, he asked her, in an eager
whisper, “Have you any mother?”
“Yeth,” replied she, with a simple little laugh, “of courth; evvybody’th
dot a muvver!”
He seemed to avert his face when she laid down this generalization; nor
could we, from our position, see his expression. “Yes,” said he; and was
silent for a while. “What is your mother’s name?”
“My mother’s name is Mumma.”
“But what is her real sure-enough name?”
“Her name is Mumma,” repeated she, with emphasis. “Oh, my mother’s got
two names. She is named Mumma and she is named Mrs. Poythress.”
“Ah, yes; but what does your father call her?”
“My papa calls my mumma my dear; oh, and sometimes he calls her
‘honey,’—because she is so sweet.”
“Does he ever call her—let me see—does he ever call her Polly?”
“Oh, me, the idea!” cried she, raising her hands and eyes in infantile
pity of his ignorance. “Why, that’s Aunt Polly’s name!”
“So your Aunt Polly is named Polly, is she?”
“No, she ain’t! Aunt Polly is named _Aunt_ Polly. She is our cook at our
house, she is.”
“She is your cook, is she? And what does she call your mother?”
“Mistiss.”
Just then the mulatto barber, passing by, doffed his hat to the
gentleman; and Dolly, the nurse, left alone, bethought her of her
charge. Coming up, she dropped a courtesy to the Stranger, and told
Laura it was time she were within doors.
“Good-by, Laura,” said the Unknown, taking her plump little hand in his;
“won’t you give me a kiss? Ah, that’s a good little girl! One more! And
another! Ah!” And he patted her cheek. “Good-by!”
“Dood-by!”