THE CHARMED MONEY.
THE CHARMED MONEY.
Jerry Mason had been hoeing two long hours in the garden; the earth was
moist and black about the cabbages, the heavy gray leaves of which were
lopping earthward to give their, as yet, soft hearts a better chance
of maturing in the sun; the red seamy leaves of the beets testified to
the good culture they had had, but as if they could not say it plainly
enough, the beets themselves were come up half out of the ground to add
their testimony, and the pale spiky tops of the onions stood up like
soldiers in straight rows, saying, “Behold, there is not a weed among
us.” The tomatoes, bright with dew-drops and full of young fruit, gave
out their pleasant odor most prodigally in payment for the care they
had just received; and some few flowers, common to be sure,--but what
flower is not beautiful?--opened bright and honest in the sunshine,
causing Jerry to leave his work for a moment, and, leaning on his hoe,
contemplate their pinky and purple and yellow colors with an ecstasy
of joy. He did not believe, for the moment, that the king’s garden
contained anything more delightful than did his mother’s. But even if
that were possible, he thought the king could not enjoy its beauties
half so much as he, because his pleasure was more than half derived
from the fact that himself had ploughed and sowed the garden, and that
the fruits and flowers before him were his, as they could not have been
if another than himself had done the work. The eyes of the simple see
straight to the truth sometimes, when all the curious speculations of
the wise are at fault, and I am not sure but that Jerry was wise in
feeling that the king could not be so happy as he.
He did not think of his bare feet half buried in the loose earth; he
did not think of his patched trousers, and that his shirt was not linen
in the wristbands and collar even; and for a minute, at least, he did
not think how hot the sun was shining down upon him, and how tired he
was.
“Jerry!” called his mother, leaning from the low window of her little
house,--“Jerry, my child, you may as well go and feed the old sitting
goose, and the change of work will rest you.”
“Yes, mother,” answered Jerry; and as he took off his hat and wiped his
face, he looked across the field where Henry Gordon was idly flying his
kite, and almost envied him: he was a rich man’s son, and neither had
to hoe nor to feed an old goose.
But Jerry was too good, and too happy, for the most part, to envy any
one long, and directly, hanging his hoe in the fork of a tree that
stood by the garden gate, he prepared the accustomed food, crossed
the barn-yard where the hens were cackling and picking the grains
from the chaff that was scattered about, passed along the field where
the cow was nibbling the short grass, went over the brook on a bridge
of stones he had built the last summer, climbed the slope beyond,
and suddenly stood still. The old goose sitting in the hollow of a
black stump close by was protruding her neck, flopping her wings, and
hissing at a terrible rate. “You are crazy, ain’t you, you ugly old
goose!” exclaimed Jerry, raising up and clinching one hand as if he
would hit her if he had anything with which to do it. “Do you think I
am afraid of you? Why I have milked our cow on the wrong side, been
all the way to mill for mother, and besides that, have killed two
garter-snakes,--one of them half a yard long and striped and checked
like a ribbon--Shut up your wings, you old--whew!” and Jerry climbed
to the top of a neighboring stump and shouted at the top of his
voice,--cutting circles in the air with his hat, and beckoning with his
hand in great earnestness. Farmer Hix stopped his team in the adjoining
field and listened, thinking Jerry was shouting for help. Mrs. Mason
put her head out of the back door; she, too, had heard Jerry, and
feared some bad accident had happened. A moment the farmer stood still,
his horses turning their heads in the direction of the call, and the
mother leaned and listened in trembling anxiety; but the door closed
presently, and the farmer ploughed on again: both had heard Jerry say
to Henry Gordon, who was seen running with his kite across the field,
“Don’t you think, our old goose has got goslings!”
That was enough to make any boy climb to the top of a stump and shout
for joy, Jerry thought. How many she had he did not know, but he would
not be surprised to find that every egg was hatched,--three of the
golden little creatures he saw, he is sure, and if the old goose would
only come off the nest he could soon tell; he would dare get a stick
and drive her off, but he thinks he won’t.
“What is it! what is it!” cries Henry Gordon, running as fast as he
can, and quite regardless of the kite that drags along the ground as he
runs. “What is it! have you found a bag of gold?”
He is older by two or three years than Jerry, and wears much finer
clothes, but he is not a finer looking boy, for all that. His boots are
of the finest leather, and polished very bright,--brighter than Jerry’s
best ones, which he only wears of Sundays, which hang over a peg at the
head of his bed in his mother’s garret; and his hat is so fresh and
new, and the ends of the green ribbon tied around it flutter so gayly,
that Jerry is abashed for a moment, and says he fears Henry will not be
paid for having run so fast, and especially if he has spoiled his fine
kite into the bargain; that he has not anything worth showing,--some
little goslings, that is all. But Henry has never seen a gosling, for
it is only lately that he has come from a great city; and he says the
old kite is of no value, he can get as many better ones as he pleases;
he rather hopes it is spoiled, and so by its string he winds it up
to him, and, tossing it at the feet of Jerry, bestows it on him in a
patronizing sort of way that would have offended him if he had not felt
in his heart that he was equal to any boy anywhere.
When the goose had been fed, and the goslings too, Jerry showed his new
friend the stone bridge across the brook, which bridge, both concluded,
might be greatly beautified and improved if they would unite their
strength and ingenuity and give a day to the work. He showed him his
mother’s cow, and assured him that he dare plat her tail together,
count the rings on her horns, or even go up to her on the “wrong side”!
Then they went to the cow-shed where the straw was in which the hens
made their nests, and after this to the garden, where Henry pulled some
of the finest flowers for his little neighbor. When it was dinner-time
and Jerry’s mother called him, his young friend went into the house
with him, and partook, with great relish, of the simple meal that was
spread.
When he went away he invited Jerry to come to his house and ride his
horse, and go gunning with him, which Jerry felt would be a great
delight to him to do, and which he afterward did many times; for from
that day Henry and Jerry were excellent friends, working and playing
together a great deal. The rich man’s son soon lost a good deal of the
foolish pretension he had at first, and what he did not lose Jerry
readily forgave. Sometimes, indeed, he would throw off his coat and
strip away shoes and stockings, and enter with hearty good-will into
whatever was to be done. They went together to the same school, for
there was but one in the neighborhood, and once or twice had hats and
jackets alike. They gathered nuts together, and berries; made hay
together, and picked apples; shouted, and sung, and made whistles, and
drove the cows home one with another. Then, too, O idle dreaming! they
made plans for the years to come,--plans of what they would do when
they were men. They would always be neighbors, and divide whatever they
had, just as they did their goslings and hollyhocks now.
“Why don’t you come to see my mother?” said Henry often to Mrs. Mason,
for he could not see why the mothers of such friends should not be
friends too. And Mrs. Mason always said she would like to do so if she
could get time, but somehow it happened that she never did find time,
and never went. Mrs. Gordon rode in her fine carriage to a fine church
on Sundays, and wore a silk gown and her hair in curls. Mrs. Mason put
her hair plainly under a plain cap, and walked across the meadow to the
school-house to attend service. Mrs. Gordon dined sumptuously at five,
Mrs. Mason simply at twelve; one lived in a big house and was served
by a good many maids and men, the other in a very small house serving
herself; the one saw the sun shine through a lace curtain, and the
other through rose-vines. So it was that Mrs. Gordon said, “Thank you,
my dear, it will give me the greatest pleasure when I have an hour to
spare,” in answer to Jerry’s invitation of, “You must come and see my
mother.” And so it happened that she never found an hour to spare, and
never went to see Jerry’s mother.
Three years went by of the closest friendship between the lads, and all
this time they did not understand exactly why their mothers could not
find time to visit each other. It was the greatest pleasure to Henry to
go with bare feet across the nicely scoured floor of Mrs. Mason, and
to sit with her and Jerry, where the roses looked in at the window, and
partake of her home-made cakes and bread, and eat her preserved fruits,
which were never so good at home; the wind came in so fresh and sweet
from the hay-field beyond the hollow, and the birds made such music in
the garden, and Mrs. Mason had such a sweet voice and a pleasant way,
his mother would be delighted, he was sure, if she could only find time
to come to the cottage.
Mrs. Mason sat by the fire waiting for Jerry, who had gone to carry a
fine yellow pumpkin of his own raising to Henry’s mother, that Henry
might have some just such pies as he was to have,--sat rocking and
musing before the bright wood-fire, wishing somebody would come in and
cheer the lonesomeness a little, for the night was falling and the snow
lay cold and smooth everywhere, far as she could see. The straw-roofed
shed of the cow was beautified like a queen’s chamber. No king could
put such a roof on his house as the snow had put on that. The fences
seemed made of pieces of snow, the trees to be trees of snow, and all
so still and cold. The cock went early to bed, fluttering the white
shower from the limb of the tree that lodged him,--fluttering it down
as though he did not care for it at all, and turning his bright eyes
to his mates that sat beside him, sober and uncomfortable enough.
He was rather glad, for his part, that so cold and snowy a night was
come; it brought out his gallantry and his fortitude. But generally the
aspect of things without, in spite of all the beauty, was cheerless.
The tea, in the old teapot cracked and bound with hoops of tin, had
been simmering a good while, the fire began to make a little red light
on the snow beneath the window, and a candle to be needed in the dim
room where Jerry’s mother sat, when she heard the creaking of the gate,
and, rising, looked out of the window. It was growing quite dusky; and
though she saw two boys coming toward the door, she could not at first
believe it was Jerry and Henry, so quietly they came, arm in arm, and
talking so low and so earnestly. What could it mean? Of all times this
was the one to make them merry, for there is more exhilaration in snow
than in wine, and birds and boys are alike fond of dipping into it, and
chirping and chattering when it lies over the ground loose and white.
Close came the young friends past rose-bushes and lilacs all wrapped
so prettily, and never once did they turn to look or dash the white
weights from the bending twigs. Nor did they step aside from the open
path and break their way, ploughing off snow-furrows as they came,
as boys love to do. No merry voices rang through the clear silence;
but soberly and straightforward they came, as if the snow had buried
beneath it some great joy.
And so, indeed, it had. They were about to be separated for a long,
long while. It had been decided at home that Henry should go away to a
military school, not to come home for six months, or it might be for a
year.
Jerry’s mother was sad enough when she heard the news; and to keep the
moisture from gathering to drops in her eyes, she rubbed the tin hoops
of her blue teapot with the towel, till they shone again.
Henry said he was sorry he was to go; but for all of his saying so, he
was not as sorry as Jerry was. He had new boots and a new coat and hat,
and a number of other things of which he was fully conscious all the
while. Then, too, he would write every day, and it would be almost the
same as seeing him, and he would come home often, for Henry had been
used to having his own way, and could not think but that his will would
still be his law, as it always had been.
The next day Jerry climbed to the top of the gate-post, and watched the
carriage that took Henry from him drive away. Through tears he caught a
glimpse of his little friend, but his little friend did not once look
toward him.
That was Jerry’s first sorrow. No number of yellow goslings could have
brought the old light into his red eyes that morning; no pinks nor
daffodils, though the garden had been full of them, could have seemed
to him bright as the smile of his playmate.
A letter was promised him by the first mail; and all the interval
seemed to Jerry a blank, a time of nothing, that he would be glad
to push right along and have done with. It would not be seeing his
friend, but it would be something; it would be a great thing: he had
never received a letter in his life, sealed and meant all for him. He
wondered how it would begin and how it would end, and what, in fact,
his friend would say, and how he would say it. One thing would be in
it, that he knew, that Henry was very lonesome and wanted to see him so
bad. That would be in the letter, and he was not sure but that it would
be in it a great many times; indeed, it was not unlikely the entire
letter would be made up of love for him and anxiety to see him. Henry
knew so much and would have learned so much, even in three days, at a
military school, that he supposed the letter would be a model,--and
what an advantage to him to have such a fine friend!
And at last the day on which the mail was expected was come, and at
last it went by and was time to go to the post-office, two miles from
his mother’s house. The snow was deep and it was cold after sunset,
but little cared Jerry for that; he would run because he could not help
it, and that would keep him warm; and, besides, if a boy thought much
of a boy and wrote him so, he would feel bad to know a boy did not
think enough of a boy to go after the letter, because it was a little
cold. So buttoning the old coat that was outgrown and a good deal worn,
Jerry set out, never minding the still air that almost cut his face,
as if it tried to thrust him back into the warm house, never minding
the white, cold glimmer of the stars that seemed to say, “It’s no use,”
never minding anything, because he was a boy that liked a boy, and
supposed a boy liked him back just as well. He was not long in walking
the two miles. He did not once think he might have gone faster and
with more comfort if Mrs. Gordon had offered him Henry’s pony to ride,
when she asked him to bring her letters. He did not think of anything
but the pleasure he would have in breaking the seal and reading to his
mother every word Henry wrote. The two miles were a good deal longer
when Jerry went home, not because he was going home, and not because it
was more up hill; it was a good deal colder, too, and his coat seemed
thinner; it nearly froze his hand to carry the bundle of letters and
papers for Mrs. Gordon, and the sharp wind brought the water to his
eyes,--he had no letter from Henry. An ugly distrust came into his
heart as he went along,--the moon might drop right down out of the sky,
for all he knew, and he hardly thought it unlikely that his mother
should have set fire to the house and run away while he was gone. If
it was possible that Henry could have broken his “word and honor,” his
“double word and honor,” what might not be possible?
Henry was not sick, for there, in a fair, firm hand, was a letter to
his parents.
He could not stop and ask Mrs. Gordon if Henry were well; something
choked him, and he must go home.
An hour he sat on a stool in the corner and cried, in spite of all his
mother could say to soothe him; but at last when she told him to wipe
his eyes and run over to Mrs. Gordon’s and see what was in Henry’s
letter, he stifled his sobs and obeyed.
Mrs. Gordon looked up from her reading as Jerry came in, in a way that
said plainly she was surprised and annoyed; and when little Fanny
Gordon ran from listening at her mother’s knee and offered Jerry a
chair at the fireside, she shook her head at the little girl, and
whispered something which Jerry thought meant she must not ask him to
sit down. Fanny half hid her face in her mother’s lap; but she turned
her eyes full of tears and sweet pity toward Jerry, and the frown of
the mother lost its power on him, and for a moment he scarcely cared
whether Henry had said anything about him or not.
Every mail day all the winter, whether it were gusty or mild, freezing
or thawing, Jerry went regularly to the post-office, but there was
never any letter for him. Once little Fanny had spoken to him through
the fence, and told him that her brother Henry had written to know what
he was doing now-a-days, and said that he should write to him as soon
as he found time. She said, too, that when she went away to school, as
she was to do in the spring, she would write a letter to him, and she
would not tell her mother nor anybody else what she wrote.
After this Jerry tried to make excuses for Henry,--he was very busy, no
doubt, and had as many letters to write home as he could find time to
do; and as he worked, spading the garden, he often tried to work out a
letter in his brain. But he could not tell very well how to begin, nor
how to end, nor what to say,--a boy in a military school might not feel
much like a boy spading in his mother’s garden.
The old goose brought out her troop of young goslings again; the
flowers all looked over the garden fence toward “Fanny’s house,” as
Jerry fancied; the heads of the cabbages were hardening, and their
great gray leaves lopping toward the ground again. Jerry could not go
to school now as he used to do when he was smaller, but had to stay
at home and work. Fanny was gone away to school now, and had kept her
promise and written a letter to Jerry,--a very little letter made up of
very little sentences, and with a superscription that made three very
crooked lines all across and across the envelope. To Jerry’s thinking,
however, there never was a much better letter written. All the time he
kept it in his pocket, reading it again and again as often as he found
leisure, though he knew every word from first to last. He could not
bear to put it away with his few books; it seemed like a free ticket to
the good-will of everybody; so he kept it, as I said, all the time in
his pocket. He found the distrust that he had had in his heart since
Henry went away growing rapidly less, and now and then he suspected
that he had been very wicked in imagining the moon could fall, or his
mother burn up the house and run away. Suddenly he stopped from his
working, tired, but looking well pleased; he had been very industrious
and done a full day’s work, though it wanted yet three hours of night.
He had made up his mind to write to Henry; for since Fanny had written
him, “I am very well; I hope you are very well. I don’t like here so
well as home. Do your goslings grow? Have you heard from Henry?” he
had felt that everybody he knew liked him, and would be glad to know
how well he was doing. So the happiness he thought he should give to
another was all bright in his face as he hung his hoe in the pear-tree,
and breaking three cabbage-leaves, not crooked and deep green, but fair
and gray with bloom, made his way to the brookside, where the shadow of
a maple lay thick and cool, and near where the stone bridge caused the
water to stop and make some silver talk before it went over.
[Illustration: THE CHARMED MONEY.]
From the cherry-tree by the door he had brought some little withes,
and having sharpened them with his teeth, began the composition of a
letter,--using his hat-crown for a desk, the cabbage-leaves for paper,
and the twigs for pens. Never was poet wrapped more happily in a dream
than he in his work, when all at once he became conscious of footsteps
and heard a voice, not unfamiliar, except in its derision, say, “Ha,
boy! I say you ought to take out a patent for that sort of paper: how
are you, though?” Jerry’s senses were a good deal bewildered, and he
could not believe at first it was Henry Gordon who stood before him,
resting his polished gun on the ground, holding a cigar in one hand,
and surveying him with such cool indifference.
He tried to rise and return civilly the rude salutation of the young
cadet; and as he advanced he saw that Henry was not alone, but
accompanied by a youth whom he introduced as a classmate, naming Jerry
as a boy he used to know; asking Jerry how things were getting on in
_his_ line, and saying that, as regarded himself, he hoped his soul had
got a little above potatoes during his absence. He did not speak even
of Jerry’s mother, who had done him so many favors; and to complete the
insult, he tossed at Jerry, as he passed along, a small piece of money,
saying, “Take that, boy, and buy you a copy-book and a pen or two.”
Jerry did not speak; he felt as if he could never speak again; he
could hardly persuade himself that it was indeed Henry Gordon who had
stood but now before him, and as long as he could see gazed the way he
was going. The very buttons of his coat seemed to mock him with their
shining; and there lay the money on the ground at his feet, and the
cabbage-leaves wilting in the sun, for where the shadow had been an
hour ago the sun shone hot enough now.
All the world was changed, and it seemed for a little while not only
possible, but highly probable, that his mother might set fire to the
house and run away, and the moon drop out of the sky; if anything could
stay back such events, it would be the letter from Fanny. He put his
hand in his pocket, to be sure that it was still there; and, stooping,
picked up the piece of money and placed it in the opposite pocket, to
keep balance. Fanny’s letter should teach him the world was not all
bad; that piece of money, that it was not all good. In itself it was
but a harmless piece of money, and he would not have known it from a
thousand others, but it had been in contact with the hand that shrunk
away from him; it had been flung at him in charity,--at him a boy as
good as any other boy, as honest and as honorable. In all respects he
was not Henry’s equal, to be sure, but he would set to work that very
day and make himself so. If he had not had Henry’s advantages, neither
had Henry had his! And straight he set out for home. His heart misgave
him almost when he reached the door and saw the tea-table spread in
holiday style, and for three. Mrs. Mason had learned that Henry was
come home, and was thinking what a pleasant time they would all have
once more. It was hard to tell his good dear mother that he had already
seen Henry, and how he had seen him. More than once, as they sat
together, Jerry’s mother arose from the table to attend some little
duty, she said, but in truth it was to dry her eyes; and more than
once Jerry said he did not care what Henry Gordon thought of him; but
his mother knew it was because he cared a great deal that he said so.
Already his mind was stung into activity, and a development was going
on, of which he was not himself aware.
Years of persevering endeavor, of hard work with the hands and harder
with the brain, we pass by,--years in which hope has been busy with
him, so busy that he has felt the steep way they have climbed together
less toilsome. Teachers and schools have not been accessible to him
much, except, indeed, the common school of humanity and the great
teacher, God, in his works. These works he has read and reread; these
he has studied, and he has studied himself, and his duties to himself
and his fellows. He feels the nobility of true and honest manhood,
afraid of nothing but doing wrong, ambitious of nothing but coining
the ability with which he has been endowed to right use. For he is
not ambitious to serve the world nor the state,--measured against
such great requirements he feels unequal; he is content with making
even a little spot of earth greener for his having lived; he thinks
it something of an achievement to turn weeds into good rich soil, and
make wheat or roses grow where, but for him, barrenness would have
been. He does not believe he could have made himself a poet if he had
mortised rhymes together never so ingeniously; nor does he suppose he
could manage the affairs of nations, because he can manage a plough.
Nevertheless, he is a proud man,--proud of his cleared land and of
his woodland,--proud of his brooks and of his cows,--of his harvests
and of his garden,--of his beautiful cottage,--of the vines about the
porch and of the well-bound volumes that shine row over row against
the wall,--of his mother, sitting beside him so comfortable and so
respectable,--proud that he owes no man anything, and proud that he is
not proud in any mean and selfish sense.
A thousand times he might have resented the old insult of the piece of
money, but he feels that “time at last sets all things even,” and he
is quite contented to wait,--so well content, indeed, that there is no
waiting to do. He could not have been so well avenged any way as he is
by his indifference.
It is the middle of June, and the garden is full of flowers that still
look toward Mrs. Gordon’s a good deal, though Jerry says he don’t care
which way they look; but we are quite sure they would not be so many
nor so bright if there were no bright eyes looking down upon them from
the opposite windows. There are bright flowers immediately under the
windows where the bright eyes are gazing forth so often; but to those
eyes the flowers in the distance show the best.
Fanny is a woman now, and though she sends no more letters to her
friend Jerry that no one knows anything of, she sends a great many
glances as full of kindly meaning as were the little sentences sent him
so long ago. She has been home from school a whole year; and though
many times, in her walks and drives, she has met Jerry, and smiled
upon him very sweetly, he has returned her smiles with only formal
politeness. Of course Fanny Gordon does not care much for the like of
him,--that is what he says to himself, and so he keeps up a show of
indifference that he is very far from feeling.
Henry has been at home a long time, too, spending his time in idleness
and in worse than idleness, so rumor says, and that things are growing
from bad to worse with the Gordons. Still they manage to keep up an
outside show, and hold their heads much above working-people like the
Masons. But when the foundation is undermined, the time will come that
the house must fall, and that time came to the Gordons.
It was early autumn; there was a little fire on the hearth, but the
door toward the flower-garden stood open, and Jerry sat in the door
watching the moonlight as it played along the grass and shone among the
stalks of such of the hardier blossoms as yet remained.
All at once his heart gave a little start,--was it some bird rustling
among the dry leaves? No, it was the step of Fanny rustling along the
fallen leaves. She came without hesitation, without blushing, straight
to where Jerry was sitting. “I could not go away,” she said, putting
out her hand to him, “without first coming to bid your mother and you
good by!”
“Go away, Fanny! Where are you going, and why?” cried Jerry, surprised
into cordiality and earnestness.
Then Fanny sat down beside him in the moonlight and told him where she
was going, and why. “Our fortune is all gone, and somebody must do
something,” she concluded.
“But why should you go away to do something?”
“Because,” Fanny answered, “we have no friends here!” and then her
voice first faltered, and she hid her face in her hands.
“No friends!” said Jerry; “with my mother and myself here? O Fanny, how
can you say that?”
Then she told him that she was sure there was no reason why himself
and his mother should be their friends; but at any rate, they had no
others, and she was going away to teach school, or to learn to sew, or
to do something by which she could take care of herself. “Just think,
Jerry,” she says, “I have not a glove to my hand!” And she held out her
hand to him, red as a rose with the evening chill.
Jerry took it between both his. “And suppose, Fanny, I should always
keep it this way,” he said, “you would not need a glove, would you?”
Fanny’s face was all bright with blushes when Mrs. Mason came to say
that supper was ready; and the place she took at the table that night
became hers for all her life before long; for, of course, she and Jerry
were married, and two birds were never happier under the mother’s wing
than were they with the mother of Jerry. Everything prospered with
them, and by and by they were the rich people in the town where they
lived, and not the Gordons at all.
One dreary night, when the outside show could not be kept up any
longer, when they were in fact reduced to the last sixpence, they sat
together, Mrs. Gordon and her son Henry, lamenting their hard fortune,
and blaming each other, and blaming Fanny, whom they had never been
to visit, and blaming everything but their own foolish pride and
perverseness for the ruin and degradation that was now impending.
Both started at the sound of a footstep; it was a creditor’s, no doubt.
“What brought you here? I don’t owe you anything!” exclaimed Henry,
sullenly, when he saw that the visitor was Jerry Mason.
“No,” replied Jerry, “but I owe you a great deal”; and taking from his
pocket the piece of money Harry had flung at him so long ago, he laid
it down on the table before him. Henry trembled and blushed for shame;
but when Jerry took his hand and said, “This piece of money has been
a charm that has kept me from idleness and uselessness; it has added
to my lands and built me a house, beautified my garden, clothed my
mother, and made her old age happy and respectable, developed my own
manhood, and crowned me with the love of the best of women. For all
this I owe you something, and I am come to pay you. Take first this
money and see what it can do for you. You are yet in the prime of life
and can retrieve and achieve everything; come with me with as hearty
a good-will as you came to look at my goslings, and we will devise
the way.” Henry took the hand extended to him, and brushing the tears
from his eyes,--the first ones that had wet them for long years,--said
in accents that trembled, “I will go, Jerry, if you think I am worth
saving; and my mother shall go too. Come, mother!” So all three went
together, and Fanny met and embraced them; and then they sat down
together and made plans for the future, and that was the happiest night
of their lives.
TO A STAGNANT POND.
O pond of the meadow,
So low and so black,
Say why are you lying thus,
Flat on your back!
Week in and week out,
And from night until morn,
You have been doing nothing
Since first you were born.
Now if you are not dead
But only just dumb,
Get up, sir, and take off
Your jacket of scum!
No sweet little flower
To your dull bosom bends;
You have only the hop-toad
And snake for your friends!
No bird to your dark wave
Comes twittering down,
And the grass all about you
Is withered and brown.
It is time, and high time,
You were setting to work,
You sordid, unlovable,
Beggarly shirk!
Just think, with your brow
Into black wrinkles curled,
You never have gladdened
A heart in the world!
And if you would henceforth
Escape from abuse,
Get up, I beseech you,
And be of some use!
Close at hand, only hid by
The sheep-grazing hill,
Your gad-about sister
Is turning a mill.
Her path is so pleasant,
Her smile is so bright,
The flocks stay about her
All day and all night.
The wild mint leans lowly,
Her kiss is so sweet,
And the stones that she treads on
Sing under her feet.
With foam-flowers always
Her wet locks are crowned,
And her bushes with berries
Blush all the year round.
She counts not the mill-work
As doing her wrong,
But makes the wheel partner,
And dances along.
And so, with her life
And her labor content,
She is queen of the meadow
By common consent.
Now here is a secret,
Receive it in faith,--
True life is in action,
Stagnation is death.
And this you may learn
From your sister, the brook,
As though it were written
And bound in a book.
You die in your torpor,
She rests in her strife,
Because she is keeping
The law of her life.
And would you be happy
As she at her mill,
Throw off your scum jacket,
And work with a will.
THE POET TO THE PAINTER.
Painter, paint me a sycamore,
A spreading and snowy-limbed tree,
Making cool shelter for three,
And like a green quilt at the door
Of the cabin near the tree,
Picture the grass for me,
With a winding and dusty road before,
Not far from the group of three,
And the silver sycamore-tree.
’Twill take your finest skill to draw
From that happy group of three,
Under the sycamore-tree,
The little girl in the hat of straw
And the faded frock, for she
Is as fair as fair can be.
You have painted frock and hat complete!
Now the color of snow you must paint her feet;
Her cheeks and lips from a strawberry-bed;
From sunflower-fringes her shining head.
Now, painter, paint the hop-vine swing
Close to the group of three,
And a bird with bright brown eyes and wing,
Chirping merrily.
“Twit twit, twit twit, twee!”
That is all the song he makes,
And the child to mocking laughter breaks.
Answering, “Here are we,
Father and mother and me!”
Pretty darling, her world is small,--
Father and mother and she are all.
Ah, painter, your hand is still!
You have made the group of three
Under the sycamore-tree,
But you cannot make all the skill
Of your colors say, “Twit twit, twee!”
Nor the answering, “Here are we,
Father and mother and me.”
I’ll be a poet, and paint with words
Talking children and chirping birds.
ONLY A DREAM.
“The flighty purpose never is o’ertook,
Unless the deed go with it.”
One time, when lying in my bed,
Many a night ago,
Flying and flapping over my head,
There went a cunning crow.
I might have struck the creature dead,
She sailed so near and slow.
I might have struck her as she went,
(All in a dream lay I,)
But thought was on the method bent,
My fated bird should die;
And when at last the shaft was sent,
The archer’s time was by.
“O cruel, cunning bird,” I said,
“What made you fly away?
I would have dyed your black wings red,
With but a moment’s stay.
Then you had flown without your head,”--
(All in a dream I lay.)
Her nest was in a giant tree,
So safe and snug and high;
And I said, “If there your young ones be,
I’ll kill them when they fly.”
’Twas hard just then to climb and see,--
(All in a dream lay I.)
Afield with my two boys one morn,
(This was the vision’s close,)
Each with a basket full of corn
To plant the furrowed rows;
Right over us, in full-fledged scorn,
There went three wicked crows.
“You might have killed us once,” they cried,
“Our mother’s nest you knew;
But now our wings are strong and wide,
And we can caw at you!”
Then vanished all my manhood’s pride,--
The birds had spoken true.
“O father,” said my boys to me,
“’Tis plain that crows will lie;
You knew what they would grow to be,
Before they learned to fly,
And would have killed them in the tree,”--
(All in a dream lay I.)
Many and many a night since then
I’ve called to mind that crow,
And thought how many thousand men
Through all their lifetime go,
Planning out times and seasons when
They will do thus and so;
But all their joys are shallow joys,
Their praise augments their woes;
For I remember when my boys
Denounced the taunting crows,
A voice inside of all their noise,
Condemning me, arose.
INVENTORY OF A DRUNKARD.
A hut of logs without a door,
Minus a roof and ditto floor;
A clapboard cupboard without crocks,
Nine children without shoes or frocks;
A wife that has not any bonnet
With ribbon bows and strings upon it,
Scolding and wishing to be dead,
Because she has not any bread.
A teakettle without a spout,
A meat-cask with the bottom out,
A “comfort” with the cotton gone,
And not a bed to put it on.
A handle without any axe,
A hatchel without wool or flax;
A potlid and a wagon-hub,
And two ears of a washing-tub;
Three broken plates of different kinds,
Some mackerel tails and bacon-rinds;
A table without leaves or legs,
One chair, and half a dozen pegs,
One oaken keg with hoops of brass,
One tumbler of dark-green glass;
A fiddle without any strings,
A gunstock, and two turkey wings.
O readers of this inventory,
Take warning by its graphic story;
For little any man expects,
Who wears good shirts with buttons in ’em,
Ever to put on cotton checks,
And only have brass pins to pin ’em!
’Tis, remember, little stitches
Keep the rent from growing great;
When you can’t tell beds from ditches,
Warning words will be too late.
HUNTER’S SONG.
I know a mountain high,
With its head against the sky,
Where the stormy eagles fly
East and west;
There, at morning’s ruddy gleam,
And in evening’s purple beam,
I have heard the nursling scream
From the nest!
O, I love that mountain high,
With its head against the sky,
And the hungry nurslings’ cry,
All forlorn;
For as winds went to and fro,
Cutting furrows through the snow,
In a hunter’s hut so low,
I was born.
O, I love the rocky glade,
Where my little brothers played,
Where together they are laid
In green beds;
With a water murmuring nigh
Its eternal lullaby,
And a blue strip of the sky
At their heads.
HAGEN WALDER.
The day with a cold, dead color
Was rising over the hill,
When little Hagen Walder
Went out to grind in th’ mill.
All vainly the light in zigzags
Fell through the frozen leaves,
And like a broidery of gold
Shone on his ragged sleeves.
No mother had he to brighten
His cheek with a kiss, and say,
“’Tis cold for my little Hagen
To grind in the mill to-day.”
And that was why the north-winds
Seemed all in his path to meet,
And why the stones were so cruel
And sharp beneath his feet.
And that was why he hid his face
So oft, despite his will,
Against the necks of the oxen
That turned the wheel in th’ mill.
And that was why the tear-drops
So oft did fall and stand
Upon their silken coats that were
As white as a lady’s hand.
So little Hagen Walder
Looked at the sea and th’ sky,
And wished that he were a salmon
In the silver waves to lie;
And wished that he were an eagle,
Away through th’ air to soar,
Where never the groaning mill-wheel
Might vex him any more;
And wished that he were a pirate,
To burn some cottage down,
And warm himself; or that he were
A market-lad in the town,
With bowls of bright, red strawberries
Shining on his stall,
And that some gentle maiden
Would come and buy them all.
So little Hagen Walder
Passed, as the story says,
Through dreams, as through a golden gate,
Into realities.
And when the years changed places,
Like the billows, bright and still,
In th’ ocean, Hagen Walder
Was the master of the mill.
And all his bowls of strawberries
Were not so fine a show
As are his boys and girls at church,
Sitting in a row.
A GOOSE AND A CROW.
Two geese, scarcely knowing
The east from the west,
Got on to the water
And rode off abreast,--
Geese, you know, are not famed
For their wisdom, at best.
Well, these were perhaps
Neither greater nor less
Than their fellows,--each had on
A very white dress,
And both had short tails,
And a neck like an S.
The morning was genial,
The water was still,
And each with her heart
On the end of her bill
Began telling secrets,
As geese sometimes will.
“All ganders are vulgar,”
One said, “all so low
That one can’t respect them;
My dear, do you know
I am really going
To marry a crow!”
“A crow!” cried the other one,
Slanting her eye:
“What! one of those black things
That swim in the sky?
How strange it would be
To go swimming so high!
“But are you sure, darling,
(Though ’tisn’t for me
To question your wisdom,)
That you shall agree?
I’ve heard say that crows
Have their nests in a tree!”
“And what if they do, dear?
Should that make you doubt
My wisdom?” “No, darling,
My fears were about
The poor little goslings,--
Might they not fall out?”
“Fall out of their own nest
Ah, where could you go
To find such a foolish fear?
Do you not know
That the carefullest bird
In the world is the crow?
“And when he shall have young
To quicken his care,
Do you think he will leave his nest
Out of repair?
Or, pray, do you think that
A crow is a bear?
“Why, only this morning,
The one I propose
To marry (be sure,
He’s the kindest of crows)
Assured me that I should do
Just as I chose!
“And so if I don’t like
My nest in a tree,
Inasmuch as he means
To defer thus to me,
I will come down and build
On the ground.” “If that he
“Continue his deference
When you are matched,”
Said the wiser goose, “and if when
Discords are hatched,
He shall have no sharp claws
Nor your eyes to be scratched!”
“I see,” said the first goose,
Receiving amiss
The warning, “that you, madam,
Envy my bliss,--
Good morning.” The last word
Was almost a hiss.
They married, this stranger pair,
For better or worse,
And, being opposed
In their natures, of course,
They quarrelled,--she left him,
Brought suit for divorce,--
And charged him with saying
A goose was a goose,
Also with most cruel
Neglect and abuse,
And with being black,--all true,
But no sort of use!
And so they are living,--
He high in his tree,
Misanthropic as ever
A crow was, and she
Decrying the courts
That won’t grant a decree.
He says to his friends
He was not understood,--
Says he wouldn’t get married
Again if he could;
And she says he lies,
For he knows that he would.