"I hung it on the chair-post, and then I stood off, fairly dazzled, so

gret was my admiration on 't. It was my old cap, be sure; but then it

was all brushed up and pressed into shape, and lined anew with one o'

the sleeves of my mother's silk weddin'-gown.. It wa' n't to be wore no

longer every day, so she said, but must be put on the upper shelf o' the

cupboard with her ring and her Sunday shawl, and kep' nice agin the time

father should come home. I suffered, on givin' on 't up, the most

tormentin' pangs, and had to bob my head agin the andirons considerable

longer than common afore I come round. I was bent on wearin' on't in the

sight of Rose Rollins,--that's you,--and forcin' on her to see the silk

linin' some ways, and I planned out warious stratagems to that end. But

mother said, 'No, Johnny, keep it nice just a leetle bit, till poor

father comes.' And arter that she pacified me by takin' on 't down from

time to time and allowin' of me to wear it as much as two or three

minutes sometimes. The linin' was pea-green; and I've often thought

since it was a leetle too fine for the tother part, which was

seal-skin, and wore tolerable bare,--I havin' wore it, not off and on,

but steady on, from the time I left off my bunnet that was made of the

end of my cradle-quilt; but I didn't calculate it was too fine then, and

I made a pint o' standin' on a chair afore the lookin'-glass, or else

afore the winder towards your 'us, all the whilst I was a-wearin' on 't.

It worried me a good deal, them times, to decide which I 'd rather

do,--look at myself, or hev you look at me!

"I used to tease mother to put the white shawl round her shoulders.

'Just for a minute,' I would say; but she always answered, 'One of these

days, Johnny; it 's all wrapt up with camp-phire, and I don't want to be

gettin' on 't down!' I understood well enough that it was to be got out

when the great day come.

"'Suppose, Johnny,' says she, one day, 'we cut off some of our luxuries,

and save up to buy somethin' nice for poor father agin he comes home!' I

was struck favorable with the idee of the present, but what luxuries was

to be cut off I didn't see clear.

"There's the candle, for one thing!' says mother. 'Taller's taller, at

the best o' times; and the few chores I do at night I can do just as

well by the light of a pine-knot.'

"Butter, she said, wa' n't healthy for her, nor milk, nor meat, nor

sugar, nor no such things, so it would all be easy enough for her. She

only hesitated on my account. But I spoke up ever so brave. 'I don't

mind,' says I; 'it'll be good fun, in fact, just to see how leetle we

can live on!' And I think yet my mind was some expanded by that

experience,--it driv me to such curus devices. At fust I took leetle

bites off my cake, and leetle sips of my porridge; but I found a more

effective plan afore long, for looks goes a good ways, and even when we

deceive ourselves it kind o' helps us. Well, I took to hevin' my

porridge in a shaller plate, so that there seemed twice as much on 't as

there really was, and to hollerin' my cake out from the under side, so

that, when it was reduced to a mere shell, it still represented what it

wa' n't; a trick that I found to work very slick, especially when I

imagined Rose a-lookin' at my shaller plate, and not knowin' how deep it

was.

"'Won't we hev a beautiful surprise, though, for poor father!' my mother

would say, when my spoon touched bottom, and it always touched bottom

premature; and then we would talk of what we should buy, and I would be

carried away like, and forget myself.

"A fur hat was talked on in our fust wild enthusiasm, but that idee was

gin up arter we'd gone about among the stores; and we settled final on

't a pair o' square-toed brogans, with nails in the heels on 'em.

"'Let 'em be good sewed shoes, and not peg,' says my mother, when she

give the shoemaker his order, 'and make 'em up just as soon as possible.

You see my husband may be here any day now; and we mean to hev a great

surprise for him,--Johnny and me.'

"The shoemaker, to my surprise,--for I expected him to enter into it

with as much enthusiasm as we,--hesitated, said he was pressed heavy

with work just then, and that he thought she had best go to some other

shop! I didn't understand the meanin' on 't at all; but my mother did,

and told him she could pay him aforehand, if he wanted it; at which he

brightened up, and said, come to think on 't, he could make the brogans

right away.

"Sure enough, they was finished at the appinted time, and I carried 'em

home, with the money that come back in change inside o' one on 'em.

"'Why, Johnny,' says mother, when she counted it, her face all

a-glowin', 'here's enough left to buy a handkerchief for your father!'

"Then she counted it agin, and said there was enough, she was a'most

sure on 't. It mightn't get a silk one, not pure silk, but if she could

only find somethin' with a leetle mixter o' cotton in 't, why it would

look nearly as well,--the difference would never be knowed across the

house.

"She wanted a new gingham apron for herself; but that wa' n't bought,

and all the money, as I have guessed sence, went into the handkerchief.

And a purty one it was, too,--yaller-colored, with a red border, and an

anchor worked in one corner on 't with blue-silk yarn.

"So the fine presents was put away on the top shelf o' the cupboard,

with the cap and the ring and the shawl, and there they stayed, week in

and week out, and still the Dauphin didn't come in. I could see that my

mother was a-growin' uneasy, more and more, though she never said

nothin' to me that was discouragin'. She'd set sometimes for an hour

a-lookin' straight into the air, and then she went up to the ruf more 'n

common to look arter the things a-dryin' there.

"One day there come on snow and sleet, but for all that she stayed

aloft, just as though the sun had been a-shinin'; and at last, when the

dusk had gathered so that she couldn't see no longer, she come down with

a gret heap o' wet things, in her arms, and all of a shiver.

"Her hand shook as she sot down to bind shoes,--she had took to bindin'

of shoes some them times, not bein' so strong as she used to be for the

washin'; but arter a while she fell of a tremble all over. 'It's no

use,' says she, 'I ain't good for nothin' no more,' and she put away the

bindin' and cowered close over the ashes.

"I wanted to lay on a big stick, but she said no, she'd go to bed, and

get warm there; but she didn't get warm, not even when I had piled all

the things I could rake and scrape over the bed-quilt, for I could see

them tremblin' together like a heap o' dry leaves.

"I went to the lady with the painted door, and she promised to come in

and see my mother early in the mornin'; but in the mornin', when I went

agin, she said she had so many corsets to fit that it wa' n't

possible,--that I must tell my mother she sent a great deal o' love, and

hoped she'd be better very soon.

"I didn't go arter her no more, and all that day and the next my poor

mother lay, now a-burnin' and now a-freezin', but by and by she got

better, and sot up in bed some, havin' my little chair agin her back;

and so she finished bindin' o' the shoes, and I carried on 'em home, she

a-chargin' me twenty times afore I sot out to take care and not lose the

money I got for bindin' on 'em. 'And don't forget to stop at the store,'

she said, 'and buy me a quarter o' tea, as you come back, Johnny.'

"But, after all, I went home without the tea, or the money either.

"In the fust place, the shoemaker said my mother had disappinted him in

not sendin' the work home when she promised; and when I said she was

sick, he answered that that wa 'n't his look-out; and then he eyed the

work sharply, sayin', at last, that he couldn't pay for them sort o'

stitches, and he wouldn't give out no more bindin' neither, and that I

might go with a hop, skip, and jump, and tell my mother so; and he waved

his hand, with a big boot-last in it, as though, if I didn't hop quick,

he'd be glad to help me for'a'd himself.

"'Never mind, Johnny,' says mother, as I leaned my head on her piller,

a-cryin', and told her what the shoemaker had said, 'it'll all be right

when father comes back.'

"She didn't mind about the tea, she said, water would serve just as

well; and then, arter pickin' at the bed-clothes a leetle, she said she

felt sleepy, and turned her face to the wall.

"All winter long she was sick, and there was heart-breakin' things all

the while comin' to pass; but I'd rather not tell on 'em.

"Spring come round at last,--as come it will, whether them that watch

for its comin' are cryin' or laughin',--and the sun shined in at the

south winder and made a patch o' gold on the floor,--all we had, to be

sure,--when one day comes the news we had been a-lookin' for so

long,--the Dauphin was a-comin' in!

"'And me here in bed!' says my mother; 'that'll never do. How

good-for-nothin' I be!'

"Then she told me to run and fetch her best gown out of the chest, and

she was out o' bed the next minute; and though she looked as pale as the

sheet she managed somehow to dress herself. Then she told me to fetch

her the lookin'-glass where she sot by the bedside; and when she seen

her face the tears came to her eyes, and one little low moan, that

seemed away down in her heart, made me shudder. 'I don't care for my own

sake,' she said, puttin' her arm across my neck; 'but what will your

father think o' me?'

"Then she sot the glass up afore her, and combed her hair half a dozen

different ways, but none on 'em suited. She didn't look like herself,

she said, nohow; and then she told me to climb to the upper shelf and

git down the fine shawl, and see if that would mend matters any.

"I fetched the ring too; but it wouldn't stay on a single finger; and so

she give it to me, smilin', and sayin' I might wear it till she got

well.

"I sot the house in order myself, with her a-tellin' on me some about

things. The two silver teaspoons was burnished up, and stuck for show

into the edge of the dresser; the three glass tumblers was sot forth in

full view; and the tin coffee-pot, so high and so narrer at the top, was

turned sideways on the shelf, so as to make the most on 't; and the

little brown earthen-ware teapot was histed atop o' that. We had a dozen

eggs we had been a-savin', for we kep' a hen on the ruf, and them I took

and sot endwise in the sand-bowl, so that, to all appearance, the whole

bowl was full of eggs; and I raly thought the appintments, one and all,

made us look considerable like rich folks.

"'Do go up to the ruf, Johnny, my child,' says my mother, at last, 'and

see what you will see.'

"She had sot two hours, with her shawl held just so across her bosom,

and was a-growin' impatient and faint like.

"She looked at me so eager, when I come down, I could hardly bear to

tell her that I could only just see the Dauphin a-lyin' out, and that

she looked black and ugly, and that I couldn't see nothin' furder. But I

did tell it, and then come another o' them little low moans away down in

her heart. Directly, though, she smiled agin, and told me to go to the

chest and open the till, and get the table-cloth and the pewter platter

that I would find there. 'We must have our supper-table shine its best

to-night,' she said.

"Agin and agin I went up to the ruf, but I didn't see nothin' no time

except the whaler a-lyin' a little out, and lookin' black and ugly, as

if there wa'n't no good a-comin' with her.

"At last evenin' fell, and then my mother crept to the winder, and got

her face agin the pane, and such a look of wistfulness come to her eyes

as I had never seen in 'em afore.

"She didn't say nothin' no more, and I didn't say nothin'; it was an

awful silence, but somethin' appeared to keep us from breakin' on 't.

"The shadders had gathered so that the street was all dusky; for there

wa'n't no lamps at our end o' the street,--when all at once mother was

a-standin' up, and holdin' out her arms. The next minute she says, 'Run

to the door, Johnny; I ain't quite sure whether or not it's him!' And

she sunk down, tremblin', and all of a heap.

"I could hear the stairs a creakin' under the tread of heavy steps, and

when I got to the door there was two men a comin' up instead o' one.

'It's him! mother! it's him!' I shouted with all my might, for I see a

sailor's cap and jacket, and took the rest for granted. I swung the door

wide, and stood a-dancin' in it, and yet I didn't like the looks o'

neither on 'em; only I thought I ought to be glad, and so I danced for

pertended joy. 'Get out o' the way! you sassy lad!' says one o' the men,

and he led the tother right past me into the house, I follerin' along

behind, but neither on 'em noticin' of me in the least; and there sot my

mother, dead still on her chair, just as if she was froze into stone.

'Here he is,' says the man that was leadin' of him,--'here's John

Chidlaw, what there is left on him!' Then he give me a push toward him,

and nodded to my mother like, a-drawin' his mouth into such queer shapes

that I couldn't tell whether he was a-laughin' or cryin', and I didn't

know which I ought to do neither.

"By this time the man that I partly took to be my father was a-backin'

furder and furder from us, and at last he got clean agin the jamb o' the

chimney, and then he looked up wild, as if he was a looking at the sky,

and directly he spoke. 'This'll be a stiff blow,' says he. 'We're struck

aft, and we'll be in the trough of the sea in a minute! God help us

all!' And with that he began to climb up the shelves o' the cupboard, as

though he was a climbin' into a ship's riggin'.

"Next thing I seen, mother had got to him, somehow, and was a-holdin'

round his neck, and talkin' to him in tones as sweet and coaxin' as

though he had been a sick baby. 'Don't you know me, John?' she

says,--'your own Katura, that you left so long ago!' He didn't answer

her at all; he didn't seem to see her, but kep' right on, a-talkin'

about the ship not bein' able to lift herself, and about the rudder

bein' tore away, and a leak som'er's, and settin' of a gang o' hands at

the pumps, and gettin' of the cargo up, and the dear knows what all! I

didn't understand a word on 't, and, besides that, I was afeard on him.

"'Tell 'em about the last whale we ketched, Jack,--that big bull that so

nigh upsot us all. Come, that's a story worth while!' It was the man

that had led him in who said this; and he laughed loud, and slapped him

on the shoulder as he said it; and then he looked at my mother and

winked, and drawed his mouth queer agin.

"My father kind o' come to himself like now, and seatin' himself astride

a chair, and with his face to the back on 't, he began:--

"We was a cruisin' about in the South Pacific, when, between three and

four in the afternoon of an August day, we bein' in latitude forty at

the time, the man on the look-out at the fore-topmast-head cried out

that a whale had broke water in plain view of our ship, and on her

weather bow.

"'Where away, sir? and what do you call her?' shouts the captain,

hailin' the mast-head.

"'Sperm whale, sir, three pints on the weather-bow, and about two miles

off!'

"'Keep a sharp eye, and sing out when the ship heads for her!'

"'Ay, ay, sir.'

"The captain went aloft with his spy-glass. 'Keep her away!' was his

next order to the man at the helm.

"'Steady!' sung out the mast-head.

"'Steady it is!' answered the wheel.

"'Square in the after-yards, and call all hands!'

"'Ay, ay, sir.'

"'Forward there! Haul the mainsail up, and square the yards!'

"'Steady, steady!' sings out the mast-head.

"'Steady it is!' answers the wheel.

"'Call all hands!' shouts the captain, in a voice like a tempest.

"The main hatches was off, and the men mostly in the blubber-room,

engaged, some on 'em, in mincin' and pikin' pieces of blanket and horse

from one tub to another, and some was a-tendin' fires, and some

a-fillin' casks with hot ile from the cooler; but quick as lightnin' all

the deck is thronged, like the street of a city when there is a cry of

fire.

"'There she blows! O, she's a beauty, a regular old sog!' sings the

mast-head.

"'Slack down the fires! Quick, by G--!' shouts the captain in a voice

like thunder.

"'She peaks her flukes, and goes down!' cries the mast-head.

"'A sharp eye, sir! Mind where she comes up!'

"'Ay, ay, sir!'

"'Get your boats ready, lads, and stand by to lower away!'

"The men work as for life,--the boat-bottoms are tallered, the

boat-tackle-falls laid down, so as to run clear, the tub o' line and

the harpoons got in, the gripes cast clear, and each boat's crew by the

side o' their boat.

"'Hoist and swing! Lower away!'

"In a moment we're off, bendin' to our oars, every man on us, eager to

see who will be up first. The whale was under half an hour; but at last

we get sight o' the signal at the main, which tells us that she's up

agin.

"'Down to your oars, lads! Give way hard!' says the captain.

"I got the palm o' my hand under the abaft oar, so as with each stroke

to throw a part of my weight agin it, and our boat leapt for'a'd across

the water, spring arter spring, like a tiger,--her length and twice her

length afore the others in a minute.

"'She's an eighty-barrel! right ahead! Give way, my boys!' cries the

captain, encouragin' on us. And all our strength was put to the oar.

"'Spring harder, boys! Harder! If she blows agin, some on you'll have an

iron into her afore five minutes!' Then to the whale,--a-standin' with

his legs wide, and bendin' for'a'd like,--'O, you're a beauty! Ahoy!

ahoy! and let us fasten!'

"We was nearly out of sight of our ship now, but we could see the smoke

of her try-works still standin' black above her, though the fires had

been slacked so long.

"All at once the whale blowed agin; and we could see her plain now,

lyin' like a log, not more 'n twenty rods ahead. A little more hard

pullin', and 'Stand up!' says the Captain, and then, 'Give me the first

chance at her!' I was a-steerin' and I steered him steady, closer,

closer, alongside a'most, and give his iron the best chance possible;

but it grazed off, and she settled quietly under, all but her head.

"'That wa'n't quite low enough,' says he. 'Another lance!'

"This failed too, and she settled clean under. Every man was quiverin'

with excitement; but I watched calmly, and, as soon as I spied her

whitenin' under water, I sent my lance arter her without orders, and by

good forten sunk it into her very life--full length.

"She throwed out a great spout o' blood, and dashed furiously under.

"'God help us! She'll come up so as to upset our boat!' cries the

captain. 'Every man here at her, when she comes in sight!'

"He had hardly done speakin' when I felt a great knock, and at the same

time seen somethin' a-flyin' through the air. She had just grazed us,

shovin' our boat aside as a pig shoves his trough, and was breakin'

water not a stone's throw ahead.

"The captain had gone overboard; but we obeyed his last words before we

looked arter him, and had a dozen irons into her afore you could 'a'

said Jack Robinson! Down she went agin, pullin' the line arter her, coil

on coil; but the pain wouldn't allow her to stay down long, and directly

she was out agin, thrashin' the water with her flukes till it was all

churned up like blubbers o'blood,--for her side was bristlin' with

harpoons, and the life pourin' out on her like rain out of a

thunder-cloud.

"Meantime the captain had been hauled aboard, and as he sunk down on an

oar,--for he couldn't stand,--all his shirt and hair a-drippin' red, his

cold, spiteful eye shot into me like a bullet, and says I to the mate,

'I'm a doomed man.'"

"Then my father began ramblin' wildly about goin' overboard himself, and

how he seen a stream o' fire afore his eyes as he sunk into the cold and

dark; and how there came an awful pressure on his brain, and a roarin'

in his ears; and how the strength went out of his thighs, and was as if

the marrer was cut,--how he heard a gurglin', and felt suffocation, and

then clean lost himself!"

At this point John Chidlaw ceased to be master of his voice, and all at

once hid his face in his arms. When the woman who had been listening so

attentively, getting one of his rough hands upon her knee, stroked it

gently, without a word, and by and by he returned her a little

pressure, and then, steadying himself up, he said: "It ain't no use to

think on't, Rose,--it's all over now, and they've met beyond the seas o'

time, my poor father and mother, for they both crossed long ago,--met,

and knowed each other, I hope, but the one never come to himself here,

nor recognized the other. My mother took straight to her bed; and when

she wore the white shawl agin, and had it drawed across her bosom, it

was for that journey from which none on us come back."

"Dear John," says Rose, very softly,--all the coquette gone,--only the

woman left. And presently he was strong enough to go on.

"It was a good many year," he said, "not till I was a'most a man, before

I came to understand rightly what it was that sot my father crazy. The

captain had been agin him all along on account of his too much sperit,

and that capterin' o' the whale finished up the business, and pinted his

fate. It wa'n't long arter this till Captain Griscom found occasion to

treat him very hardly, which bein' resented only by a look, he ordered

him down below to be flogged! This, Rose, was what broke the spirit on

him; he was never himself arterwards, never knowed nothin' at all clear,

exceptin' about the takin' o' that whale; and that he told over and over

a hundred times, arter that fust time, just as I've told it to you, but

all before it and all behind it was shadders, till the great shadder of

all came over him.

"When I come to hear on 't, I said I hoped my father would meet that

'ere captain som'er's on the seas of eternity, and flog him within an

inch of his life; and I ha'n't repented the sayin' on't yet."

The tide had come up while John Chidlaw was telling his story, and his

little boat slid off the bar directly, when, taking up the oars, he soon

brought her to land.

"Bless your dear heart, John!" says Rose, pointing back to the boat's

name, as he handed her ashore, "would you believe I was so stupid as

not to see that the name o' your wessel was the same as my own? I read

it the _Rose Rolling_, to be sure!"

But John maintained that she was not stupid a single bit nor mite, but,

on the contrary, smart altogether beyond the common. "To come so nigh

the truth," says he, "and yet not get hold on 't, arter all, is a leetle

the slickest thing yet!"

And then he told, as they walked home together,--he with three bandboxes

in one arm, and her on the other,--all about his weary years of hardship

and poverty, and all about the beginning of his good fortune, the

running away of the horse and of the little girl who drew him after her,

because she reminded him so much of Rose herself as she used to be when

he looked down upon her so fondly from the roof in Baker's Row,--told

her of the child's father, and how he set him up in business,--of his

prosperity since, ending with her taking passage with him, which he said

was the best fortune of all.

"That was luck," says he, "that no words can shadder forth!" And then he

said, "I oughtn't to call it luck, my dear; it was just an intervention

of Divine Providence!" Then he corrected himself. "An interwention o'

Diwine Providence," says he,--"that's what it was!" And he hugged the

very bandboxes till he fairly stove them in.

About a month after this blessed luck, the milliner's shop was closed

one day at an unusually early hour, and the white-muslin curtains at the

parlor windows above might have been noticed to nutter and sway, as with

some gay excitement indoors. And so indeed there was. John had taken his

Rose for good and all, and the little parlor was full of glad hearts and

merry feet. All the milliner's apprentices and sewing-girls of the

neighborhood were there, bright as so many butterflies, laughing, and

nodding, and whispering one another, and dropping their eyes before the

young sailors, and teamsters, and other fine fellows, who were serving

them with a generosity that was only equalled by their admiration.

Coffee, cakes, cheese, chowder, bottled beer, fruits, and hot

bannocks,--the lasses had them all at once, and the lads would have been

glad to give them even more.

And John, grown ten years younger that day, kept all the while (being

forced to turn his head away now and then to receive congratulations)

one foot under the table, and against the soft slipper and silken

stocking of Rose, lest at any moment she might be caught up into heaven,

and so vanish out of his sight; and she, in turn, kept fond watch of

him, pressing the oranges upon him with almost importunate solicitude.

Perhaps she remembered that one which he had parted with for her sake,

when he used to look down upon her from the roof of Baker's Row with

such hopeless and helpless admiration.

ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?

Each day when the glow of sunset

Fades in the western sky,

And the wee ones, tired of playing,

Go tripping lightly by,

I steal away from my husband,

Asleep in his easy-chair,

And watch from the open doorway

Their faces fresh and fair.

Alone in the dear old homestead

That once was full of life,

Ringing with girlish laughter,

Echoing boyish strife,

We two are waiting together;

And oft, as the shadows come,

With tremulous voice he calls me,

"It is night! are the children home?"

"Yes, love!" I answer him gently,

"They're all home long ago";--

And I sing, in my quivering treble,

A song so soft and low,

Till the old man drops to slumber,

With his head upon his hand,

And I tell to myself the number

Home in the better land.

Home, where never a sorrow

Shall dim their eyes with tears!

Where the smile of God is on them

Through all the summer years!

I know!--yet my arms are empty,

That fondly folded seven,

And the mother heart within me

Is almost starved for heaven.

Sometimes, in the dusk of evening,

I only shut my eyes,

And the children are all about me,

A vision from the skies:

The babes whose dimpled fingers

Lost the way to my breast,

And the beautiful ones, the angels,

Passed to the world of the blessed.

With never a cloud upon them,

I see their radiant brows:

My boys that I gave to freedom,--

The red sword sealed their vows!

In a tangled Southern forest,

Twin brothers, bold and brave,

They fell; and the flag they died for,

Thank God! floats over their grave.

A breath, and the vision is lifted

Away on wings of light,

And again we two are together,

All alone in the night.

They tell me his mind is failing,

But I smile at idle fears;

He is only back with the children,

In the dear and peaceful years.

And still as the summer sunset

Fades away in the west,

And the wee ones, tired of playing,

Go trooping home to rest,

My husband calls from his corner,

"Say, love! have the children come?"

And I answer, with eyes uplifted,

"Yes, dear! they are all at home!"

IN THE GRAY GOTH.

If the wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight, I don't believe

it would ever have happened.

Where is the poker, Johnny? Can't you push back that for'ard log a

little? Dear, dear! Well, it doesn't make much difference, does it?

Something always seems to ail your Massachusetts fires; your hickory is

green, and your maple is gnarly, and the worms eat out your oak like a

sponge. I haven't seen anything like what I call a fire,--not since Mary

Ann was married, and I came here to stay. "As long as you live, father,"

she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an

open fire, and how she wouldn't let Jacob put in the air-tight in the

sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose. Mary Ann was a good

girl always, if I remember straight, and I'm sure I don't complain.

Isn't that a pine-knot at the bottom of the basket? There! that's

better.

Let me see; I began to tell you something, didn't I? O yes; about that

winter of '41. I remember now. I declare, I can't get over it, to think

you never heard about it, and you twenty-four year old come Christmas.

You don't know much more, either, about Maine folks and Maine fashions

than you do about China,--though it's small wonder, for the matter of

that, you were such a little shaver when Uncle Jed took you. There were

a great many of us, it seems to me, that year, I 'most forget how

many;--we buried the twins next summer, didn't we?--then there was Mary

Ann, and little Nancy, and--well, coffee was dearer than ever I'd seen

it, I know, about that time, and butter selling for nothing; we just

threw our milk away, and there wasn't any market for eggs; besides

doctor's bills and Isaac to be sent to school; so it seemed to be the

best thing, though your mother took on pretty badly about it at first.

Jedediah has been good to you, I'm sure, and brought you up

religious,--though you've cost him a sight, spending three hundred and

fifty dollars a year at Amherst College.

But, as I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,--to tell

the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm

getting to be an old man,--a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes,

when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the

toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I

do believe it wouldn't have happened,--though it isn't that I mean to

lay the blame on her _now_.

I'd been out at work all day about the place, slicking things up for

to-morrow; there was a gap in the barn-yard fence to mend,--I left that

till the last thing, I remember,--I remember everything, some way or

other, that happened that day,--and there was a new roof to put on the

pig-pen, and the grape-vine needed an extra layer of straw, and the

latch was loose on the south barn door; then I had to go round and take

a last look at the sheep, and toss down an extra forkful for the cows,

and go into the stall to have a talk with Ben, and unbutton the coop

door to see if the hens looked warm,--just to tuck 'em up, as you might

say. I always felt sort of homesick--though I wouldn't have owned up to

it, not even to Nancy--saying good by to the creeturs the night before I

went in. There, now! it beats all, to think you don't know what I'm

talking about, and you a lumberman's son. "Going in" is going up into

the woods, you know, to cut and haul for the winter,--up, sometimes, a

hundred miles deep,--in in the fall and out in the spring; whole gangs

of us shut up there sometimes for six months, then down with the

freshets on the logs, and all summer to work the farm,--a merry sort of

life when you get used to it, Johnny; but it was a great while ago, and

it seems to me as if it must have been very cold.--Isn't there a little

draft coming in at the pantry door?

So when I'd said good by to the creeturs,--I remember just as plain how

Ben put his great neck on my shoulder and whinnied like a baby,--that

horse knew when the season came round and I was going in, just as well

as I did,--I tinkered up the barn-yard fence, and locked the doors, and

went in to supper.

I gave my finger a knock with the hammer, which may have had something

to do with it, for a man doesn't feel very good-natured when he's been

green enough to do a thing like that, and he doesn't like to say it

aches either. But if there is anything I can't bear it is lamp-smoke; it

always did put me out, and I expect it always will. Nancy knew what a

fuss I made about it, and she was always very careful not to hector me

with it I ought to have remembered that, but I didn't. She had lighted

the company lamp on purpose, too, because it was my last night. I liked

it better than the tallow candle.

So I came in, stamping off the snow, and they were all in there about

the fire,--the twins, and Mary Ann, and the rest; baby was sick, and

Nancy was walking back and forth with him, with little Nancy pulling at

her gown. You were the baby then, I believe, Johnny; but there always

was a baby, and I don't rightly remember. The room was so black with

smoke, that they all looked as if they were swimming round and round in

it. I guess coming in from the cold, and the pain in my finger and all,

it made me a bit sick. At any rate, I threw open the window and blew out

the light, as mad as a hornet.

"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have

known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There, now!

I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the

oil."

"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft, too.

"Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking,

but I never knew a thing about it; he's been fretting and taking on so

the last hour, I didn't notice anyway."

"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever.

"You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about

me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in."

Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good

deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more

than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking

like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals.

That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as

saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the

baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't

ending; and folks can look things that they don't say.

We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles; there were some

fritters--I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters--smoking hot

off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny teacups;

I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night, but I never

had a word to say, and Nancy crumbed up the children's bread with a

jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter; it seemed as if they would

blaze right up,--I couldn't help looking at them, for all I pretended

not to, for she looked just like a pictur. Some women always are pretty

when they are put out,--and then again, some ain't; it appears to me

there's a great difference in women, very much as there is in hens; now,

there was your aunt Deborah,--but there, I won't get on that track now,

only so far as to say that when she was flustered up she used to go red

all over, something like a piny, which didn't seem to have just the same

effect.

That supper was a very dreary sort of supper, with the baby crying, and

Nancy getting up between the mouthfuls to walk up and down the room with

him; he was a heavy little chap for a ten-month-old, and I think she

must have been tuckered out with him all day. I didn't think about it

then; a man doesn't notice such things when he's angry,--it isn't in

him. I can't say but _she_ would if I'd been in her place. I just eat up

the fritters and the maple molasses,--seems to me I told her she ought

not to use the best chiny cup, but I'm not just sure,--and then I took

my pipe, and sat down in the corner.

I watched her putting the children to bed; they made her a great deal of

bother, squirming off of her lap and running round barefoot. Sometimes I

used to hold them and talk to them and help her a bit, when I felt

good-natured, but I just sat and smoked, and let them alone. I was all

worked up about that lamp-wick, and I thought, you see, if she hadn't

had any feelings for me there was no need of my having any for her,--if

she had cut the wick, I'd have taken the babies; she hadn't cut the

wick, and I wouldn't take the babies; she might see it if she wanted to,

and think what she pleased. I had been badly treated, and I meant to

show it.

It is strange, Johnny, it really does seem to me very strange, how easy

it is in this world to be always taking care of our _rights_. I've

thought a great deal about it since I've been growing old, and there

seems to me a good many things we'd better look after fust.

But you see I hadn't found that out in '41, and so I sat in the corner,

and felt very much abused. I can't say but what Nancy had pretty much

the same idea; for when the young ones were all in bed at last, she took

her knitting and sat down the other side of the fire, sort of turning

her head round and looking up at the ceiling, as if she were trying her

best to forget I was there. That was a way she had when I was courting,

and we went along to huskings together, with the moon shining round.

Well, I kept on smoking, and she kept on looking at the ceiling, and

nobody said a word for a while, till by and by the fire burnt down, and

she got up and put on a fresh log.

"You're dreadful wasteful with the wood, Nancy," says I, bound to say

something cross, and that was all I could think of.

"Take care of your own fire, then," says she, throwing the log down and

standing up as straight as she could stand. "I think it's a pity if you

haven't anything better to do, the last night before going in, than to

pick everything I do to pieces this way, and I tired enough to drop,

carrying that great crying child in my arms all day. You ought to be

ashamed of yourself, Aaron Hollis!"

Now if she had cried a little, very like I should have given up, and

that would have been the end of it, for I never could bear to see a

woman cry; it goes against the grain. But your mother wasn't one of the

crying sort, and she didn't feel like it that night.

She just stood up there by the fireplace, as proud as Queen Victory,--I

don't blame her, Johnny,--O no, I don't blame her; she had the right of

it there, I _ought_ to have been ashamed of myself; but a man never

likes to hear that from other folks, and I put my pipe down on the

chimney-shelf so hard I heard it snap like ice, and I stood up too, and

said--but no matter what I said, I guess. A man's quarrels with his wife

always make me think of what the Scripture says about other folks not

intermeddling. They're things, in my opinion, that don't concern anybody

else as a general thing, and I couldn't tell what I said without telling

what she said, and I'd rather not do that. Your mother was as good and

patient-tempered a woman as ever lived, Johnny, and she didn't mean it,

and it was I that set her on. Besides, my words were worst of the two.

Well, well, I'll hurry along just here, for it's not a time I like to

think about; but we had it back and forth there for half an hour, till

we had angered each other up so I couldn't stand it, and I lifted up my

hand,--I would have struck her if she hadn't been a woman.

"Well," says I, "Nancy Hollis, I'm sorry for the day I married you, and

that's the truth, if ever I spoke a true word in my life!"

I wouldn't have told you that now if you could understand the rest

without. I'd give the world, Johnny,--I'd give the world and all those

coupon bonds Jedediah invested for me if I could anyway forget it; but I

said it, and I can't.

Well, I've seen your mother look 'most all sorts of ways in the course

of her life, but I never saw her before, and I never saw her since, look

as she looked that minute. All the blaze went out in her cheeks, as if

somebody had thrown cold water on it, and she stood there stock still,

so white I thought she would drop.

"Aaron--" she began, and stopped to catch her breath, "Aaron--" but she

couldn't get any farther; she just caught hold of a little shawl she had

on with both her hands, as if she thought she could hold herself up by

it, and walked right out of the room. I knew she had gone to bed, for I

heard her go up and shut the door. I stood there a few minutes with my

hands in my pockets, whistling Yankee Doodle. Your mother used to say

men were queer folks, Johnny; they always whistled up the gayest when

they felt the wust. Then I went to the closet and got another pipe, and

I didn't go up stairs till it was smoked out.

When I was a young man, Johnny, I used to be that sort of fellow that

couldn't bear to give up beat. I'd acted like a brute, and I knew it,

but I was too spunky to say so. So I says to myself, "If she won't make

up first, I won't, and that's the end on't." Very likely she said the

same thing, for your mother was a spirited sort of woman when her

temper _was_ up; so there we were, more like enemies sworn against each

other than man and wife who had loved each other true for fifteen

years,--a whole winter, and danger, and death perhaps, coming between

us, too.

It may seem very queer to you, Johnny,--it did to me when I was your

age, and didn't know any more than you do,--how folks can work

themselves up into great quarrels out of such little things; but they

do, and into worse, if it's a man who likes his own way, and a woman

that knows how to talk. It's my opinion, two thirds of all the divorce

cases in the law-books just grow up out of things no bigger than that

lamp-wick.

But how people that ever loved each other could come to hard words like

that, you don't see? Well, ha, ha! Johnny, that amuses me, that really

does amuse me, for I never saw a young man nor a young woman

either,--and young men and young women in general are very much like

fresh-hatched chickens, to my mind, and know just about as much of the

world, Johnny,--well, I never saw one yet who didn't say that very

thing. And what's more, I never saw one who could get it into his head

that old folks knew better.

But I say I had loved your mother true, Johnny, and she had loved me

true, for more than fifteen years; and I loved her more the fifteenth

year than I did the first, and we couldn't have got along without each

other, any more than you could get along if somebody cut your heart

right out. We had laughed together and cried together; we had been sick,

and we'd been well together; we'd had our hard times and our pleasant

times right along, side by side; we'd christened the babies, and we'd

buried 'em, holding on to each other's hand; we had grown along year

after year, through ups and downs and downs and ups, just like one

person, and there wasn't any more dividing of us. But for all that we'd

been put out, and we'd had our two ways, and we had spoken our sharp

words like any other two folks, and this wasn't our first quarrel by any

means.

I tell you, Johnny, young folks they start in life with very pretty

ideas,--very pretty. But take it as a general thing, they don't know any

more what they're talking about than they do about each other, and they

don't know any more about each other than they do about the man in the

moon. They begin very nice, with their new carpets and teaspoons, and a

little mending to do, and coming home early evenings to talk; but by and

by the shine wears off. Then come the babies, and worry and wear and

temper. About that time they begin to be a little acquainted, and to

find out that there are two wills and two sets of habits to be fitted

somehow. It takes them anywhere along from one year to three to get

jostled down together. As for smoothing off, there's more or less of

that to be done always.

Well, I didn't sleep very well that night, dropping into naps and waking

up. The baby was worrying over his teeth every half-hour, and Nancy

getting up to walk him off to sleep in her arms,--it was the only way

you _would_ be hushed up, and you'd lie and yell till somebody did it.

Now, it wasn't many times since we'd been married that I had let her do

that thing all night long. I used to have a way of getting up to take my

turn, and sending her off to sleep. It isn't a man's business, some

folks say. I don't know anything about that; maybe, if I'd been broiling

my brain in book learning all day till come night, and I was hard put to

it to get my sleep anyhow, like the parson there, it wouldn't; but all I

know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since

morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need

nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just

as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great

stout fellow,--there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my

muscle,--and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that

may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so I lay with

my eyes shut, and pretended that I was asleep; for I didn't feel like

giving in, and speaking up gentle, not about that nor anything else.

I could see her though, between my eyelashes, and I lay there, every

time I woke up, and watched her walking back and forth, back and forth,

up and down, with the heavy little fellow in her arms, all night long.

Sometimes, Johnny, when I'm gone to bed now of a winter night, I think I

see her in her white nightgown with her red-plaid shawl pinned over her

shoulders and over the baby, walking up and down, and up and down. I

shut my eyes, but there she is, and I open them again, but I see her all

the same.

I was off very early in the morning; I don't think it could have been

much after three o'clock when I woke up. Nancy had my breakfast all laid

out overnight, except the coffee, and we had fixed it that I was to make

up the fire, and get off without waking her, if the baby was very bad.

At least, that was the way I wanted it; but she stuck to it she should

be up,--that was before there'd been any words between us.

The room was very gray and still,--I remember just how it looked, with

Nancy's clothes on a chair, and the baby's shoes lying round. She had

got him off to sleep in his cradle, and had dropped into a nap, poor

thing! with her face as white as the sheet, from watching.

I stopped when I was dressed, halfway out of the room, and looked round

at it,--it was so white, Johnny! It would be a long time before I should

see it again,--five months were a long time; then there was the risk,

coming down in the freshets, and the words I'd said last night. I

thought, you see, if I should kiss it once,--I needn't wake her

up,--maybe I should go off feeling better. So I stood there looking: she

was lying so still, I couldn't see any more stir to her than if she had

her breath held in. I wish I had done it, Johnny,--I can't get over

wishing I'd done it, yet. But I was just too proud, and I turned round

and went out, and shut the door.

We were going to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and

I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I

remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up

at the stars,--the sun was putting them out pretty fast,--and trying not

to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of anything else.

It was so early, that there wasn't many folks about to see us off; but

Bob Stokes's wife,--she lived nigh the office, just across the

road,--she was there to say good by, kissing of him, and crying on his

shoulder. I don't know what difference that should make with Bob Stokes,

but I snapped him up well, when he came along, and said good morning.

There were twenty-one of us just, on that gang, in on contract for Dove

and Beadle. Dove and Beadle did about the heaviest thing on woodland of

anybody, about that time. Good, steady men we were, most of us,--none of

your blundering Irish, that wouldn't know a maple from a hickory, with

their gin-bottles in their pockets,--but our solid, Down-East Yankee

heads, owning their farms all along the river, with schooling enough to

know what they were about 'lection day. You didn't catch any of _us_

voting your new-fangled tickets when we had meant to go up on Whig, for

want of knowing the difference, nor visa vussy. To say nothing of Bob

Stokes, and Holt, and me, and another fellow,--I forget his name,--being

members in good and reg'lar standing, and paying in our five dollars to

the parson every quarter, charitable.

Yes, though I say it that shouldn't say it, we were as fine a looking

gang as any in the county, starting off that morning in our red

uniform,--Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout,

for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a

stitch for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing

till they were out of sight of town, and waving their caps at their

wives and babies standing in the window along on the way. I didn't sing.

I thought the wind blew too hard,--seems to me that was the reason,--I'm

sure there must have been a reason, for I had a voice of my own in those

days, and had led the choir perpetual for five years.

We weren't going in very deep; Dove and Beadle's lots lay about thirty

miles from the nearest house; and a straggling, lonely sort of place

that was too, five miles out of the village, with nobody but a dog and a

deaf old woman in it. Sometimes, as I was telling you, we had been in a

hundred miles from any human creature but ourselves.

It took us two days to get there though, with the oxen; and the teams

were loaded down well, with so many axes and the pork-barrels;--I don't

know anything like pork for hefting down more than you expect it to,

reasonable. It was one of your ugly gray days, growing dark at four

o'clock, with snow in the air, when we hauled up in the lonely place.

The trees were blazed pretty thick, I remember, especially the pines;

Dove and Beadle always had that done up prompt in October. It's pretty

work going in blazing while the sun is warm, and the woods like a great

bonfire with the maples. I used to like it, but your mother wouldn't

hear of it when she could help herself, it kept me away so long.

It's queer, Johnny, how we do remember things that ain't of no account;

but I remember, as plainly as if it were yesterday morning, just how

everything looked that night, when the teams came up, one by one, and we

went to work spry to get to rights before the sun went down.

There were three shanties,--they don't often have more than two or three

in one place,--they were empty, and the snow had drifted in; Bob

Stokes's oxen were fagged out, with their heads hanging down, and the

horses were whinnying for their supper. Holt had one of his great

brush-fires going,--there was nobody like Holt for making fires,--and

the boys were hurrying round in their red shirts, shouting at the oxen,

and singing a little, some of them low, under their breath, to keep

their spirits up. There was snow as far as you could see,--down the

cart-path, and all around, and away into the woods; and there was snow

in the sky now, setting in for a regular nor'easter. The trees stood up

straight all around without any leaves, and under the bushes it was as

black as pitch.

"Five months," said I to myself,--"five months!"

"What in time's the matter with you, Hollis?" says Bob Stokes, with a

great slap on my arm; "you're giving that 'ere ox molasses on his hay!"

Sure enough I was, and he said I acted like a dazed creatur, and very

likely I did. But I couldn't have told Bob the reason. You see, I knew

Nancy was just drawing up her little rocking-chair--the one with the

green cushion--close by the fire, sitting there with the children to

wait for the tea to boil. And I knew--I couldn't help knowing, if I'd

tried hard for it--how she was crying away softly in the dark, so that

none of them could see her, to think of the words we'd said, and I gone

in without ever making of them up. I was sorry for them then. O Johnny,

I was sorry, and she was thirty miles away. I'd got to be sorry five

months, thirty miles away, and couldn't let her know.

The boys said I was poor company that first week, and I shouldn't wonder

if I was. I couldn't seem to get over it any way, to think I couldn't

let her know.

If I could have sent her a scrap of a letter, or a message, or

something, I should have felt better. But there wasn't any chance of

that this long time, unless we got out of pork or fodder, and had to

send down,--which we didn't expect to, for we'd laid in more than

usual.

We had two pretty rough weeks' work to begin with, for the worst storms

of the season set in, and kept in, and I never saw their like, before or

since. It seemed as if there'd never be an end to them. Storm after

storm, blow after blow, freeze after freeze; half a day's sunshine, and

then at it again! We were well tired of it before they stopped; it made

the boys homesick.

However, we kept at work pretty brisk,--lumbermen aren't the fellows to

be put out for a snow-storm,--cutting and hauling and sawing, out in the

sleet and wind. Bob Stokes froze his left foot that second week, and I

was frost-bitten pretty badly myself. Cullen--he was the boss--he was

well out of sorts, I tell you, before the sun came out, and cross enough

to bite a ten-penny nail in two.

But when the sun _is_ out, it isn't so bad a kind of life, after all. At

work all day, with a good hot dinner in the middle; then back to the

shanties at dark, to as rousing a fire and tiptop swagan as anybody

could ask for. Holt was cook that season, and Holt couldn't be beaten on

his swagan.

Now you don't mean to say you don't know what swagan is? Well, well! To

think of it! All I have to say is, you don't know what's good then.

Beans and pork and bread and molasses,--that's swagan,--all stirred up

in a great kettle, and boiled together; and I don't know anything--not

even your mother's fritters--I'd give more for a taste of now. We just

about lived on that; there's nothing you can cut and haul all day on

like swagan. Besides that, we used to have doughnuts,--you don't know

what doughnuts are here in Massachusetts; as big as a dinner-plate,

those doughnuts were, and--well, a little hard, perhaps. They used to

have it about in Bangor that we used them for clock pendulums, but I

don't know about that.

I used to think a great deal about Nancy nights, when we were sitting up

by the fire,--we had our fire right in the middle of the hut, you know,

with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. When supper was eaten, the

boys all sat up around it, and told stories, and sang, and cracked their

jokes; then they had their backgammon and cards; we got sleepy early,

along about nine or ten o'clock, and turned in under the roof with our

blankets. The roof sloped down, you know, to the ground; so we lay with

our heads in under the little eaves, and our feet to the fire,--ten or

twelve of us to a shanty, all round in a row. They built the huts up

like a baby's cob-house, with the logs fitted in together. I used to

think a great deal about your mother, as I was saying; sometimes I would

lie awake when the rest were off as sound as a top, and think about her.

Maybe it was foolish, and I'm sure I wouldn't have told anybody of it;

but I couldn't get rid of the notion that something might happen to her

or to me before five months were out, and I with those words unforgiven.

Then, perhaps, when I went to sleep, I would dream about her, walking

back and forth, up and down, in her nightgown and little red shawl, with

the great heavy baby in her arms.

So it went along till come the last of January, when one day I saw the

boys all standing round in a heap, and talking.

"What's the matter?" says I.

"Pork's given out," says Bob, with a whistle. "Beadle got that last lot

from Jenkins there, his son-in-law, and it's sp'ilt. I could have told

him that beforehand. Never knew Jenkins to do the fair thing by anybody

yet."

"Who's going down?" said I, stopping short. I felt the blood run all

over my face, like a woman's.

"Cullen hasn't made up his mind yet," says Bob, walking off.

Now you see there wasn't a man on the ground who wouldn't jump at the

chance to go; it broke up the winter for them, and sometimes they could

run in home for half an hour, driving by; so there wasn't much of a hope

for me. But I went straight to Mr. Cullen.

"Too late! Just promised Jim Jacobs," said he, speaking up quick; it was

just business to him, you know.

I turned off, and I didn't say a word. I wouldn't have believed it, I

never would have believed it, that I could have felt so cut up about

such a little thing. Cullen looked round at me sharp.

"Hilloa, Hollis!" said he. "What's to pay?"

"Nothing, thank you, sir," says I, and walked off, whistling.

I had a little talk with Jim alone. He said he would take good care of

something I'd give him, and carry it straight. So when night came I went

and borrowed Mr. Cullen's pencil, and Holt tore me off a bit of clean

brown paper he found in the flour-barrel, and I went off among the trees

with it alone. I built a little fire for myself out of a

huckleberry-bush, and sat down there on the snow to write. I couldn't do

it in the shanty, with the noise and singing. The little brown paper

wouldn't hold much; but these were the words I wrote,--I remember every

one of them,--it is curious now I should, and that more than twenty

years ago:--

"Dear Nancy,"--that was it,--"Dear Nancy, I can't get over it, and I

take them all back. And if anything happens coming down on the logs--"

I couldn't finish that anyhow, so I just wrote "Aaron" down in the

corner, and folded the brown paper up. It didn't look any more like

"Aaron" than it did like "Abimelech," though; for I didn't see a single

letter I wrote,--not one.

After that I went to bed, and wished I was Jim Jacobs.

Next morning somebody woke me up with a push, and there was the boss.

"Why, Mr. Cullen!" says I, with a jump.

"Hurry up, man, and eat your breakfast," said he; "Jacobs is down sick

with his cold."

"_Oh!_" said I.

"You and the pork must be back here day after to-morrow,--so be spry,"

said he.

I rather think I was, Johnny.

It was just eight o'clock when I started; it took some time to get

breakfast, and feed the nags, and get orders. I stood there, slapping

the snow with my whip, crazy to be off, hearing the last of what Mr.

Cullen had to say.

They gave me the two horses,--we hadn't but two,--oxen are tougher for

going in, as a general thing,--and the lightest team on the ground; it

was considerably lighter than Bob Stokes's. If it hadn't been for the

snow, I might have put the thing through in two days, but the snow was

up to the creatures' knees in the shady places all along; off from the

road, in among the gullies, you could stick a four-foot measure down

anywhere. So they didn't look for me back before Wednesday night.

"I must have that pork Wednesday night sure," says Cullen.

"Well, sir," says I, "you shall have it Wednesday noon, Providence

permitting; and you shall have it Wednesday night anyway."

"You will have a storm to do it in, I'm afraid," said he, looking at the

clouds, just as I was whipping up. "You're all right on the road, I

suppose?"

"All right," said I; and I'm sure I ought to have been, for the times

I'd been over it.

Bess and Beauty--they were the horses, and of all the ugly nags that

ever I saw Beauty was the ugliest--started off on a round trot, slewing

along down the hill; they knew they were going home just as well as I

did. I looked back, as we turned the corner, to see the boys standing

round in their red shirts, with the snow behind them, and the fire, and

the shanties. I felt a mite lonely when I couldn't see them any more;

the snow was so dead still, and there were thirty miles of it to cross

before I could see human face again.

The clouds had an ugly look,--a few flakes had failed already,--and the

snow was purple, deep in as far as you could see under the trees.

Something made me think of Ben Gurnell, as I drove on, looking along

down the road to keep it straight. You never heard about it? Poor Ben!

Poor Ben! It was in '37, that was; he had been out hunting up blazed

trees, they said, and wandered away somehow into the Gray Goth, and went

over,--it was two hundred feet; they didn't find him not till

spring,--just a little heap of bones; his wife had them taken home and

buried, and by and by they had to take her away to a hospital in

Portland,--she talked so horribly, and thought she saw bones round

everywhere.

There is no place like the woods for bringing a storm down on you quick;

the trees are so thick you don't mind the first few flakes, till, first

you know, there's a whirl of 'em, and the wind is up.

I was minding less about it than usual, for I was thinking of

Nannie,--that's what I used to call her, Johnny, when she was a girl,

but it seems a long time ago, that does. I was thinking how surprised

she'd be, and pleased. I knew she would be pleased. I didn't think so

poorly of her as to suppose she wasn't just as sorry now as I was for

what had happened. I knew well enough how she would jump and throw down

her sewing with a little scream, and run and put her arms about my neck

and cry, and couldn't help herself.

So I didn't mind about the snow, for planning it all out, till all at

once I looked up, and something slashed into my eyes and stung me,--it

was sleet.

"Oho!" said I to myself, with a whistle,--it was a very long whistle,

Johnny; I knew well enough then it was no play-work I had before me till

the sun went down, nor till morning either.

That was about noon,--it couldn't have been half an hour since I'd eaten

my dinner; I eat it driving, for I couldn't bear to waste time.

The road wasn't broken there an inch, and the trees were thin; there'd

been a clearing there years ago, and wide, white level places wound off

among the trees; one looked as much like a road as another, for the

matter of that. I pulled my visor down over my eyes to keep the sleet

out,--after they're stung too much they're good for nothing to see with,

and I _must_ see, if I meant to keep that road.

It began to be cold. You don't know what it is to be cold, you don't,

Johnny, in the warm gentleman's life you've lived. I was used to Maine

forests, and I was used to January, but that was what I call cold.

The wind blew from the ocean, straight as an arrow. The sleet blew every

way,--into your eyes, down your neck, in like a knife into your cheeks.

I could feel the snow crunching in under the runners, crisp, turned to

ice in a minute. I reached out to give Bess a cut on the neck, and the

sleeve of my coat was stiff as pasteboard before I bent my elbow up

again.

If you looked up at the sky, your eyes were shut with a snap as if

somebody'd shot them. If you looked in under the trees, you could see

the icicles a minute, and the purple shadows. If you looked straight

ahead, you couldn't see a thing.

By and by I thought I had dropped the reins; I looked at my hands, and

there I was holding them tight. I knew then that it was time to get out

and walk.

I didn't try much after that to look ahead; it was of no use, for the

sleet was fine, like needles, twenty of 'em in your eye at a wink; then

it was growing dark. Bess and Beauty knew the road as well as I did, so

I had to trust to them. I thought I must be coming near the clearing

where I'd counted on putting up overnight, in case I couldn't reach the

deaf old woman's.

There was a man just out of Bangor the winter before, walking just so

beside his team, and he kept on walking, some folks said, after the

breath was gone, and they found him frozen up against the sleigh-poles.

I would have given a good deal if I needn't have thought of that just

then. But I did, and I kept walking on.

Pretty soon Bess stopped short. Beauty was pulling on,--Beauty always

did pull on,--but she stopped too. I couldn't stop so easily, so I

walked along like a machine, up on a line with the creaturs' ears. I

_did_ stop then, or you never would have heard this story, Johnny.

Two paces,--and those two hundred feet shot down like a plummet. A great

cloud of snow-flakes puffed up over the edge. There were rocks at my

right hand, and rocks at my left. There was the sky overhead. I was in

the Gray Goth!

I sat down, as weak as a baby. If I didn't think of Ben Gurnell then, I

never thought of him. It roused me up a bit, perhaps, for I had the

sense left to know that I couldn't afford to sit down just yet, and I

remembered a shanty that I must have passed without seeing; it was just

at the opening of the place where the rocks narrowed, built, as they

build their light-houses, to warn folks to one side. There was a log or

something put up after Gurnell went over, but it was of no account,

coming on it suddenly. There was no going any farther that night, that

was clear; so I put about into the hut, and got my fire going, and Bess

and Beauty and I, we slept together.

It was an outlandish name to give it, seems to me, anyway. I don't know

what a Goth is, Johnny; maybe you do. There was a great figger up on the

rock, about eight feet high; some folks thought it looked like a man. I

never thought so before, but that night it did kind of stare in through

the door as natural as life.

When I woke up in the morning I thought I was on fire. I stirred and

turned over, and I was ice. My tongue was swollen up so I couldn't

swallow without strangling. I crawled up to my feet, and every bone in

me was stiff as a shingle.

Bess was looking hard at me, whinnying for her breakfast. "Bess," says

I, very slow, "we must get home--to-night--_any_--how."

I pushed open the door. It creaked out into a great drift, and slammed

back. I squeezed through and limped out. The shanty stood up a little,

in the highest part of the Goth. I went down a little,--I went as far as

I could go. There was a pole lying there, blown down in the night; it

came about up to my head. I sunk it into the snow, and drew it up.

Just six feet.

I went back to Bess and Beauty, and I shut the door. I told them I

couldn't help it,--something ailed my arms,--I couldn't shovel them out

to-day. I must lie down and wait till to-morrow.

I waited till to-morrow. It snowed all day, and it snowed all night. It

was snowing when I pushed the door out again into the drift. I went back

and lay down. I didn't seem to care.

The third day the sun came out, and I thought about Nannie. I was going

to surprise her. She would jump up and run and put her arms about my

neck. I took the shovel, and crawled out on my hands and knees. I dug it

down, and fell over on it like a baby.

After that, I understood. I'd never had a fever in my life, and it's not

strange that I shouldn't have known before.

It came all over me in a minute, I think. I couldn't shovel through.

Nobody could hear. I might call, and I might shout. By and by the fire

would go out. Nancy would not come. Nancy did not know. Nancy and I

should never kiss and make up now.

I struck my arm out into the air, and shouted out her name, and yelled

it out. Then I crawled out once more into the drift.

I tell you, Johnny, I was a stout-hearted man, who'd never known a fear.

I could freeze. I could burn up there alone in the horrid place with

fever. I could starve. It wasn't death nor awfulness I couldn't

face,--not that, not _that_; but I loved her true, I say,--I loved her

true, and I'd spoken my last words to her, my very last; I had left her

_those_ to remember, day in and day out, and year upon year, as long as

she remembered her husband, as long as she remembered anything.

I think I must have gone pretty nearly mad with the fever and the

thinking. I fell down there like a log, and lay groaning, "God Almighty!

God Almighty!" over and over, not knowing what it was that I was saying,

till the words strangled in my throat.

Next day, I was too weak so much as to push open the door. I crawled

around the hut on my knees, with my hands up over my head, shouting out

as I did before, and fell, a helpless heap, into the corner; after that

I never stirred.

How many days had gone, or how many nights, I had no more notion than

the dead. I knew afterwards; when I knew how they waited and expected

and talked and grew anxious, and sent down home to see if I was there,

and how she--But no matter, no matter about that.

I used to scoop up a little snow when I woke up from the stupors. The

bread was the other side of the fire; I couldn't reach round. Beauty eat

it up one day; I saw her. Then the wood was used up. I clawed out chips

with my nails from the old rotten logs the shanty was made of, and kept

up a little blaze. By and by I couldn't pull any more. Then there were

only some coals,--then a little spark. I blew at that spark a long

while,--I hadn't much breath. One night it went out, and the wind blew

in. One day I opened my eyes, and Bess had fallen down in the corner,

dead and stiff. Beauty had pushed out of the door somehow and gone. I

shut up my eyes. I don't think I cared about seeing Bess,--I can't

remember very well.

Sometimes I thought Nancy was there in the plaid shawl, walking round

the ashes where the spark went out. Then again I thought Mary Ann was

there, and Isaac, and the baby. But they never were. I used to wonder

if I wasn't dead, and hadn't made a mistake about the place that I was

going to.

One day there was a noise. I had heard a great many noises, so I didn't

take much notice. It came up crunching on the snow, and I didn't know

but it was Gabriel or somebody with his chariot. Then I thought more

likely it was a wolf.

Pretty soon I looked up, and the door was open; some men were coming in,

and a woman. She was ahead of them all, she was; she came in with a

great spring, and had my head against her neck, and her arm holding me

up, and her cheek down to mine, with her dear, sweet, warm breath all

over me; and that was all I knew.

Well, there was brandy, and there was a fire, and there were blankets,

and there was hot water, and I don't know what; but warmer than all the

rest I felt her breath against my cheek, and her arms about my neck, and

her long hair, which she had wrapped all in, about my hands.

So by and by my voice came. "Nannie!" said I.

"O don't!" said she, and first I knew she was crying.

"But I will," says I, "for I'm sorry."

"Well, so am I," says she.

Said I, "I thought I was dead, and hadn't made up, Nannie."

"O _dear_!" said she; and down fell a great hot splash right on my face.

Says I, "It was all me, for I ought to have gone back and kissed you."

"No, it was _me_," said she, "for I wasn't asleep, not any such thing. I

peeked out, this way, through my lashes, to see if you wouldn't come

back. I meant to wake up then. Dear me!" says she, "to think what a

couple of fools we were, now!"

"Nannie," says I, "you can let the lamp smoke all you want to!"

"Aaron--" she began, just as she had begun that other night, "Aaron--"

but she didn't finish, and--Well, well, no matter; I guess you don't

want to hear any more, do you?

But sometimes I think, Johnny, when it comes my time to go,--if ever it

does,--I've waited a good while for it,--the first thing I shall see

will be her face, looking as it looked at me just then.

BUSY BRAINS.

A CHAPTER OF LITERARY ANECDOTE.

Of all working systems, the Mind seems most pertinacious in concealing

the method of its operations. "No admittance" is inscribed upon the door

of the laboratories of the brain. Approaching a psychological inquiry is

like entering a manufactory: curious to observe its ingenious processes,

we find that, though we may penetrate its court-yard and ware-rooms,

every precaution is taken by its polite proprietors to prevent our

interrogating its workmen or understanding its methods. The intellect

often displays proudly her works; she has the assurance to attempt to

answer questions about all things else in heaven and earth; but when her

life is the subject of inquiry, that life seems to elude her own

observation. We see in the evening sky stars so dim that the eye cannot

fix upon them; we only catch glimpses of them when we are looking at

some other point aside; the moment we turn the eye full upon them, they

are lost to our sight. This covert and transient vision is the best

which men have ever yet caught of the Mind, which they have studied so

long to know. The metaphysicians look directly at it, and to them it is

invisible, and they cannot agree what it is, nor how it moves. And when

we look aside at the anatomy and physiology of the human frame, or, on

the other hand, at the complex and endless variety of human actions and

human experience, we catch only a partial and unsatisfactory glimpse of

the soul which is beyond.

Thought, as we have suggested, will uncover to us almost anything sooner

than the secrets of its own power. It has explained much about the

conditions of rapid vegetation, and how to procure profitable crops from

the earth; but how little has it yet disclosed of the conditions which

secure vigorous thinking, and best promote the development of truth!

But some one may say: "I supposed that the conditions of mental activity

were well known; they are quiet, peace of mind, neither too much nor too

little food, and a subject which interests the feelings, or effectually

calls forth the powers of the mind."

Though you know all this, you are in ignorance still. Truly a savage

might profess the art of agriculture in this fashion; for all this is

only as if one were to say that the conditions of success in farming

were to be where there were no earthquakes or avalanches, that is, to be

quiet; to have the ground cleared of trees, that is, to have the mind

free from cares and the shadows of sorrows; to have neither too much nor

too little sunshine and rain, that is, to be properly fed; and to have

good seed to put into the ground, that is, to engage the mind with a

topic which it will expand and reproduce. After all these things have

been secured, it is only a sort of barbaric husbandry that we have

practised. The common and rude experience of men, laboring without

thinking about their labor, teaches these things, and the very

beginnings of the art and science of Intellectual Economy come beyond

and after these.

What shall we say of those moods which every student passes through,

which turn and return upon the mind, irresistible and mysterious? What

are the causes of those strange and delightful exaltations of mind in

which thought runs like a clock when the pendulum is off, and crowds a

week of existence into an hour of time? Whence are those dull days which

come so unexpectedly, and sometimes lead a troop of dull followers, to

interrupt our life's work for a week at a time? Where are we to search

for obstructions in the channels of the mind when ideas will not flow?

How is it that, after a period of clearness and activity in thought, the

brain grows indolent, and, without a feeling of illness, or even of

fatigue, work lags and stops? By what right is it that, at times, each

faculty in our possession seems to grow independent, and refuses to

return to its task at our call? What are the secret psychological

conditions which influence the mental powers as strangely as if there

were a goblin who had power to mesmerize Fancy and put it to sleep, to

lock up Imagination in a dreary den of commonplaces, to blindfold

Attention and make sport of his vain groping, and to send sober Reason

off on foolish errands, so that Mistress Soul has not a servant left?

Such variations of mental power, which we call moods of mind, are often

caused, doubtless, by ill-health, or by fatigue, or by some irregularity

of habit, or by anxiety of mind; but the experience of every student

will probably attest the existence of such variations where none of

these causes can be assigned. There are moods which we cannot trace to

illness, or weariness, or external circumstances. Men are prone to

regard them as whims, which sometimes they struggle against and

sometimes they yield to, but at all times wonder at.

The connection of the mind and body, and the dependence of the mind upon

the health and vigor of the body, have been much dwelt upon; and we

cannot be too deeply sensible of the debt which the student owes to

those who have made this truth prominent to him. But, after all, it is

wonderful with how much independence of bodily suffering--and even of

suffering in the brain--the mind carries itself, and this fact seems

worthy of more distinct recognition than it has received. It

significantly confirms our belief in the existence of an immaterial

principle, or soul, superior to the mere functions of the brain. Great

and healthful mental activity often exists in a disordered body; and

biographical literature is full of illustrations of the power of a

strong will to accomplish brilliant results while the system is agitated

by physical distress.

Campbell, the poet, pursued his regular habit of writing every day, even

under the pressure of much bodily pain.

Cowper never, when it was possible to perform his task, excused his

frail and desponding body from attendance in his little summer-house,

morning and afternoon, until his forty lines of Homer were arrayed in

English dress. The ballad of "John Gilpin" originated during one of his

illnesses. With the hope of diverting his mind during an unusually

severe attack of gloom, Lady Austen related to him the history of the

renowned citizen, which she had heard in her childhood. The tale made a

vivid impression, and the next morning he told her that the ludicrous

incident had convulsed him with laughter during the night, and that he

had embodied the whole into a ballad.

Paley's last, and perhaps, for his day, his greatest work,--his "Natural

Theology,"--was principally composed during the period in which he was

subject to attacks of that terribly malady, nephralgia.

So great was the delicacy of John Locke's constitution, that he was not

capable of a laborious application to the medical art, which was his

profession; and it is not improbable that his principal motive in

studying it was that he might be qualified, when necessary, to act as

his own physician. His difficulty was a lung complaint, or asthma; but

his biographer says: "It occasioned disturbance to no person but

himself, and persons might be with him without any other concern than

that created by seeing him suffer." Notwithstanding this permanent

suffering, his works are alike laborious and voluminous.

Robert Hall, in the period when his intellectual power was most

vigorous, pursued his daily studies almost regardless of the pain which

was his companion through life. Dr. Gregory pursued a course of study

with him in metaphysics and in mathematics; and he writes: "On entering

his room in the morning, I could at once tell whether or not his night

had been refreshing; for if it had, I found him at the table, the books

to be studied ready, and a vacant chair set for me. If his night had

been restless, and the pain still continued, I found him lying on the

sofa, or, more frequently, upon three chairs, on which he could obtain

an easier position. At such seasons, scarcely ever did a complaint issue

from his lips; but, inviting me to take the sofa, our reading

commenced.... Sometimes, when he was suffering more than usual, he

proposed a walk in the fields, where, with the appropriate book as our

companion, we could pursue the subject. If _he_ was the preceptor, as

was commonly the case in these peripatetic lectures, he soon lost the

sense of pain, and nearly as soon escaped from our author, whoever he

might be, and expatiated at large upon some train of inquiry or

explication which our course of reading had suggested. As his thoughts

enkindled, both his steps and his words became quicker, until erelong it

was difficult to say whether the body or the mind were brought most upon

the stretch in keeping up with him."

Hannah More, who wrote many volumes, and accumulated a fortune of nearly

a hundred and fifty thousand dollars from them, was an invalid. In her

early life, as well as in her declining years, she was subject to

successive illnesses, which threw great impediments in the way of her

intellectual exertions. Morning headaches prevented her from rising

early. She used to say that her frequent attacks of illness were a great

blessing to her, independently of the prime benefit of cheapening life

and teaching patience; for they induced a habit of industry not natural

to her, and taught her to make the most of her _well_ days. She

laughingly added, it had taught her also to contrive employments for her

sick ones; that from habit she had learned to suit her occupations to

every gradation of the measure of capacity she possessed. "I never," she

said, "afford a moment of a healthy day to transcribe, or put stops, or

cross _t_'s or dot my _i_'s. So that I find the lowest stage of my

understanding may be turned to some account, and save better days for

better things. I have learned from it also to avoid procrastination, and

that idleness which often attends unbroken health."

Baxter, one of the most voluminous of English writers, was an invalid.

After speaking of his multifarious labors as pastor, preacher, and also

surgeon to the poor in general, he says these were but his relaxation;

his writing was his chief labor, which went slowly on, for he had no

amanuensis, and his weakness took up so much of his time. "All the pains

that my infirmities ever brought on me," he adds, "were never half so

grievous and afflictive as the unavoidable loss of time which they

occasioned. I could not bear, through the weakness of my stomach, to

rise before seven, and afterwards not till much later; and some

infirmities I labored under made it above an hour before I could be

dressed. An hour I must have of necessity to walk before dinner, and

another before supper, and after supper I could seldom study." He is

described as one of the most diseased men that ever reached the full

limit of human life, entering upon mature life diseased and sore from

head to foot, and with the symptoms of old age. His "Saint's Rest" was

written as his meditation in a severe illness, and after he had been

given up by his physicians.

Lindley Murray commenced his work as a grammarian, and his other

writings, after disease had fixed upon his declining years. Having

successively engaged in the practice of law, and in mercantile pursuits,

and having retired from the latter with some property, he fell into

ill-health, which compelled him to go abroad, and kept him an exile

through the remainder of his long life. The disease with which he was

afflicted was a weakness in the lower limbs, which precluded him from

walking, and, after a time, from taking any exercise whatever. He was

thus imprisoned, as it were, in a country-seat, near York, in England;

and here he commenced those literary labors, which, so far from being

forbidden by his illness, did much to alleviate his sufferings. He says:

"In the course of my literary labors, I found that the mental exercise

which accompanied them was not a little beneficial to my health. The

motives which excited me to write, and the objects which I hoped to

accomplish, were of a nature calculated to cheer the mind, and to give

the animal spirits a salutary impulse. I am persuaded that, if I had

suffered my time to pass away with little or no employment, my health

would have been still more impaired, my spirits depressed, and perhaps

my life considerably shortened."

Of Lord Jeffrey, who was a very hard-working man, it is said that one of

his cures for a headache was to sit down and clear up a deep legal

question.

The cases of Pascal, Dr. Johnson, Channing, and others, will doubtless

occur to the reader. It will suffice here to mention one more,--that of

William of Orange, whose vigorous, comprehensive, and untiring intellect

through a long course of years wielded and shaped the destinies of

England, and enabled him, if not to make a more brilliant page in

history, yet to leave a more enduring monument in human institutions

than any other man of his age. Macaulay thus graphically describes him:

"The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable, because his

physical organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had been

weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood, his complaints had been

aggravated by a severe attack of small-pox. He was asthmatic and

consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He

could not sleep unless his head was propped by several pillows, and

could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel

headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The

physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some

date beyond which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it

was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through

a life which was one long disease, the force of his mind never failed,

on any great occasion, to bear up his suffering and languid body."

Let the weak and feeble of body, therefore, take courage of heart; and

let the robust student be admonished that he cannot excuse _all_ his

inactive days upon the ground of indisposition.

Fatigue is an enemy which every hard-working brain knows of; but it is

an enemy, not of the workman, but only of the taskmaster. The student

may resort to what healthful contrivances he pleases to avoid fatigue;

but when it appears, he should not excuse himself, but yield to its

impulse. He should learn to distinguish indolence, and other

counterfeits, from that genuine weariness which makes the sleep of a

laboring man sweet. Weariness is the best friend of labor, just as the

toothache is the best friend of sound teeth. Weariness is an angel. When

the proper end of your day has come, she hovers over your desk, and, if

you are careless of the time, she breathes a misty breath upon your

eyelids, and loads your pen with an invisible weight; the shadow of her

gray wings dims your page, and her throbbing hand upon your forehead

admonishes you of her presence. Let her visits be few and far between,

and it is well; but you will never regret that you entertained her even

unawares. You may avoid, but never resist her. She comes from Heaven to

save life.

But comes there never into your study a little imp of darkness,--of

intellectual darkness, we mean,--whose efforts to imitate the gentle

interference of fatigue are as grotesque as they are vexatious, and who

does not succeed in deceiving, however readily one may sometimes fall in

with his humor? The heavy pen, the dull page, the wandering thoughts,

sometimes interrupt the most successful currents of labor, in those

morning hours, and in the fresh days after vacations, when we cannot

find the excuse of weariness. There is an indisposition to continuous

labor, which is utterly different from fatigue.

John Foster declared: "I have no power of getting fast forward in any

literary task; it costs me far more labor than any other mortal who has

been in the habit so long. I have the most extreme and invariable

repugnance to all literary labors of any kind, and almost all mental

labor. When I have anything of the kind to do, I linger hours and hours

before I can resolutely set about it, and days and weeks if it is some

task more than ordinary."

Dr. Humphrey recommends that the unwilling thoughts be frightened to

their task by the same means which Lord Jeffrey used to drive out a

headache. He says, in his letters to his son: "When you sit down to

write, you sometimes will, no doubt, find it difficult to collect your

scattered thoughts at the moment, and fix them upon the subject. If, in

these cases, you take up a newspaper, or whatever other light reading

may happen to be at hand, with the hope of luring the truants back, you

will be disappointed. Nothing but stern and decided measures will

answer. I would advise you to resort at once to geometry or conic

sections, or some other equally inexorable discipline to settle the

business. I have myself often called in the aid of Euclid for a few

moments, and always with good success. A little wholesome schooling of

the mind upon lines and angles and proportions, when it is not in the

right mood for study, will commonly make it quite willing to exchange

them for the labor of composition, as the easier task of the two."

There is sound philosophy perhaps in this recommendation. Many persons

have observed that the preliminary process of "composing the thoughts"

is one which requires a little time and effort, especially where one

comes to his subject from a period of exercise, or repose, or any other

condition in which the brain has not been active. The functional

activity of the brain depends on the copious supply of the arterial

blood, its activity varying with that supply, increasing as that supply

is greater, and relaxing when it is diminished. But unlike other organs

of the body, the brain is densely packed in an unyielding cavity, and

there must be room made for this increased volume of circulation

whenever it takes place. This is accomplished, physiologists tell us, in

the cerebro-spinal fluid, the quantity of which has been estimated at

two ounces. This fluid is readily absorbed and as readily reproduced,

and thus its quantity varies in a certain inverse proportion to the

volume of the circulation of blood in the brain; and by this means an

equality of pressure is secured throughout all the variations in the

force of the circulation. The act of adjustment between this balancing

fluid and the blood requires a little period for its completion, and

therefore the brain cannot instantaneously be brought to its maximum

action.

Hence, where the circulation has been diverted from the brain, and the

proposed mental effort requires it to be vigorously revived in the

brain, time must be allowed for this process of adjustment, and room

must be made for the needed supply of blood; and perhaps a familiar

demonstration in mathematics, which fixes the attention, and will

instantly detect any delinquency of that faculty, may often be one of

the best modes of employing this transition period, and aiding the

change.

We may observe here the singular paradox, which we believe that the

philosophy of the mind and the experience of the scholar equally

establish, that what are usually called the heaviest or severest

subjects of thought are the least exhausting to the thinker. How many

students, like Chief-Justice Parsons, have been accustomed, when

fatigued with the labor of deep research, or exhausted by continued

train of thought upon one subject, to relax the mind with arithmetical

or geometrical problems. Isaac Newton could, month after month, spend in

the profoundest problems of pure mathematics twice as many hours in the

day as Walter Scott could give to the composition of what we call light

reading; and it will be found that mathematicians, theologians, and

metaphysicians have been able to sustain more protracted labor, and with

less injury, than have poets and novelists. There are not wanting

reasons which aid us to understand this paradox, but we will not enter

upon them here.

Irregularities of habit will doubtless disturb the action of the mind.

The mental power that is thrown away and wasted by recklessness in this

respect is incalculable. But there are variations in mental power in the

midst of health, in the absence of fatigue, and under the most regular

habits. Perhaps few authors have more carefully adapted their habits to

their work, or ordered their method of life with a more quiet equality,

than did Milton. He went to bed uniformly at nine o'clock.[C] He rose in

the summer generally at four, and in winter at five. When, contrary to

his usual custom, he indulged himself with longer rest, he employed a

person to read to him from the time of his waking to that of his rising.

The opening of his day was uniformly consecrated to religion. A chapter

of the Hebrew Scriptures being read to him as soon as he was up, he

passed the subsequent interval till seven o'clock in private meditation.

From seven till twelve he either studied, listened while some author was

read to him, or dictated as some friendly hand supplied him with its

pen. At twelve commenced his hour of exercise, which before his

blindness was usually passed in his garden or in walking, and afterward

for the most part in the swing which he had contrived for the purpose of

exercise. His early and frugal dinner succeeded, and when it was

finished he resigned himself to the recreation of music, by which he

found his mind at once gratified and restored. He played on the organ,

and sang, or his wife sang for him. From his music he returned with

fresh vigor to his books or his composition. At six he admitted the

visits of his friends; he took his abstemious supper, of olives or some

light thing, at eight; and at nine, having smoked a pipe and drank a

glass of water, he retired. Yet in the midst of this clock-like

regularity his labors were broken by frequent unfruitful seasons.

Symmons says of him, that "he frequently composed in the night, when his

unpremeditated verse would sometimes flow in a torrent, tinder the

impulse, as it were, of some strange poetical fury; and in these

peculiar moments of inspiration, his amanuensis, who was generally his

daughter, was summoned by the bell to arrest the verses as they came,

and to commit them to the security of writing.... Some days would elapse

undistinguished by a verse, while on others he would dictate thirty or

forty lines.... Labor would often be ineffectual to obtain what often

would be gratuitously offered to him; and his imagination, which at one

instant would refuse a flower to his most strenuous cultivation, would

at another time shoot up into spontaneous and abundant vegetation." He

seldom wrote any in the summer.

Cowper said that _he_ composed best in winter, because then he could

find nothing else to do but think; and he contrasted himself in this

respect with other poets, who have found an inspiration in the

attractive scenes of the more genial seasons.

The biographer of Campbell has given us the following anecdote with

respect to the oft-quoted lines,

"'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,

And coming events cast their shadows before."

The happy thought first presented itself to his mind during a visit at

Minto. He had gone early to bed, and, still meditating on "Lochiel's

Warning," fell fast asleep. During the night he suddenly awoke,

repeating, "Events to come cast their shadows before"! This was the very

thought for which he had been hunting the whole week. He rang the bell

more than once with increasing force. At last, surprised and annoyed by

so unseasonable a peal, the servant appeared. The poet was sitting with

one foot in the bed, and the other on the floor, with an air of mixed

impatience and inspiration. "Sir, are you ill?" inquired the servant.

"Ill! never better in my life. Leave me the candle, and oblige me with a

cup of tea as soon as possible." He then started to his feet, seized

hold of his pen, and wrote down the happy thought, but as he wrote

changed the words "events to come" into "coming events," as it now

stands in the text. Looking at his watch he observed that it was two

o'clock, the right hour for a poet's dream; and over his cup of tea he

completed his first sketch of "Lochiel."

Nor is this capriciousness exclusively the attribute of the poetic Muse.

Calvin, who studied and wrote in bed, if he felt his facility of

composition quitting him, as not unfrequently he did, gave up writing

and composing, and went about his out-door duties for days, weeks, and

months together. But as soon as he felt the inspiration again, he went

back to his bed, and his secretary set to work forthwith.

Dr. Edward Robinson was always under the necessity of waiting upon his

moods in composition. He wondered at the men who can write when they

will. Sometimes for days together he could make no headway in his higher

tasks.

There are avocations, like those of the advocate, the preacher, the

journalist, which must be pursued continuously, well or ill, and in

spite of such variations of feeling. In these labors men doubtless learn

to disregard in some degree these moods of mind; but the variable

quality of the productions of one man on different days confirms what

testimony we have of their existence.

The zeal or the indifference, the clearness or the dulness, the

quickness or the sluggishness of thought, are doubtless to some degree

determined by the methods of labor into which the person falls, and by

the incidental habits and circumstances of his life. It is wonderful

what a vast fund of information and suggestion upon these and kindred

points of mental phenomena is found in the experience of the great

industrial class of the intellectual world recorded in biographical and

historical literature. Let us then visit some of the busiest and most

successful scholars, philosophers, poets, writers, and preachers; let us

peep through the window of biography into the library, the cabinet, and

the office. Let us watch the habits of some of these busy-brained men,

these great masters of the intellectual world. Let us note what helps

and what hindrances they have found; how they have driven their work, or

how they have been driven by it, and what is the nature and degree of

the systems which they have adopted in ordering their hours of labor and

of relaxation.

We will visit them as we find them, without looking for examples of

excellence or warnings of carelessness, and will leave the reader to

make his own inferences.

The poet Southey, who is said to have been, perhaps, more continually

employed than any other writer of his generation, was habitually an

early riser, but he never encroached upon the hours of the night. He

gives the following account of his day, as he employed it at the age of

thirty-two: "Three pages of history after breakfast (equivalent to five

in small quarto printing), then to transcribe and copy for the press, or

to make my selections and biographies, or what else suits my humor, till

dinner-time. From dinner till tea, I write letters, read, see the

newspaper, and very often indulge in a siesta, for sleep agrees with me,

and I have a good substantial theory to prove that it must; for as a man

who walks much requires to sit down and rest himself, so does the brain,

if it be the part most worked, require its repose. Well, after tea I go

to poetry, and correct and rewrite and copy till I am tired, and then

turn to anything else till supper." At the age of fifty-five, his life

varied but little from this sketch. When it is said that his breakfast

was at nine, after a little reading, his dinner at four, tea at six, and

supper at half past nine, and that the intervals, except the time

regularly devoted to a walk, between two and four, and a short sleep

before tea, were occupied with reading and writing, the outline of his

day during those long seasons when he was in full work will have been

given. After supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over,

though he generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was

ready to enter into conversation, to amuse and to be amused. During the

several years that he was partially employed upon the life of Dr. Bell,

he devoted two hours before breakfast to it in the summer, and as much

time as there was daylight for during the winter months, that it might

not interfere with the usual occupations of the day. Of himself, at the

age of sixty, at a time when he was thus engaged every morning at work

away from his home, he says: "I get out of bed as the clock strikes

six, and shut the house door after me as it strikes seven. After two

hours' work, home to breakfast; after which my son engages me till about

half past ten, and, when the post brings no letters that interest or

trouble me, by eleven I have done with the newspaper, and can then set

about what is properly the business of the day. But I am liable to

frequent interruptions, so that there are not many mornings in which I

can command from two to three unbroken hours at the desk. At two I take

my daily walk, be the weather what it may, and when the weather permits,

with a book in my hand. Dinner at four, read about half an hour, then

take to the sofa with a different book, and after a few pages get my

soundest sleep, till summoned to tea at six. My best time during the

winter is by candlelight; twilight interferes with it a little, and in

the season of company I can never count upon an evening's work. Supper

at half past nine, after which I read an hour, and then to bed. The

greatest part of my miscellaneous work is done in the odds and ends of

time."

Shelley rose early in the morning, walked and read before breakfast,

took that meal sparingly, wrote and studied the greater part of the

morning, walked and read again, dined on vegetables (for he took neither

meat nor wine), conversed with his friends (to whom his house was ever

open), again walked out, and usually finished with reading to his wife

till ten o'clock, when he went to bed. This was his daily existence. His

book was generally Plato, or Homer, or one of the Greek tragedians, or

the Bible, in which last he took a great interest. Out of twenty-four

hours he frequently read sixteen. "He wrote his Prometheus," says

Willis, "in the baths of Caracalla, near the Coliseum." It was his

favorite haunt in Rome.

The poet Campbell thus describes his labors, when in London, at the age

of fifty-five: "I get up at seven, write letters for the Polish

Association, until half past nine, breakfast, go to the club and read

the newspapers till twelve. Then I sit down to my studies, and, with

many interruptions, do what I can till four. I then walk round the Park

and generally dine out at six. Between nine and ten I return to

chambers, read a book or write a letter, and go to bed always before

twelve." "His correspondence," says his biographer, "occupied four hours

every morning, in French, German, and Latin. He could seldom act with

the moderation necessary for his health. Whatever object he once took in

hand, he determined to carry out, and found no rest until it was

accomplished." Whatever he wrote during his connection with the New

Monthly and the Metropolitan was written hurriedly. If a subject was

proposed for the end of a month, he seldom gave it a thought until it

was no longer possible to delay the task. He would then sit down in the

quietest corner of his chambers, or, if quiet was not to be found in

town, he would start off to the country, and there, shut in among the

green fields, complete his task. When sixty-two years old, he says: "I

am only six hours out of the twenty-four in bed. I study twelve, and

walk six. Oranges, exercise, and early rising serve to keep me

flourishing."

"Procter (Barry Cornwall) usually writes," says Willis, "in a small

closet adjoining his library. There is just room enough in it for a desk

and two chairs, and his favorite books, miniature likenesses of authors,

manuscripts, &c., piled around in true poetical confusion." He confines

his labors to the daytime, eschewing evening work. In a letter to a

friend, some years ago, he wrote: "I hope you will not continue to give

up your nights to literary undertakings. Believe me (who have suffered

bitterly for this imprudence) that nothing in the world of letters is

worth the sacrifice of health and strength and animal spirits which will

certainly follow this excess of labor."

Cowper, at the age of fifty-three, and at a busy period of his life,

says: "The morning is my writing time, and in the morning I have no

spirits. So much the worse for my correspondents. Sleep, that refreshes

my body, seems to cripple me in every other respect. As the evening

approaches I grow more alert, and when I am retiring to bed am more fit

for mental occupation than at any other time. So it fares with us whom

they call nervous."

He was very assiduous in labor. While he was translating Homer, he says:

"As soon as breakfast is over, I retire to my nutshell of a

summer-house, which is my verse manufactory, and here I abide seldom

less than three hours, and not often more." This little summer-house,

which he called his boudoir, was not much bigger than a sedan-chair; the

door of it opened into the garden, which was covered with pinks, roses,

and honeysuckles. The window opened into his neighbor's orchard. He

says: "It formerly served an apothecary, now dead, as a smoking-room;

and under my feet is a trapdoor, which once covered a hole in the ground

where he kept his bottles. At present, however, it is dedicated to

sublimer uses. Having lined it with garden mats, and furnished it with a

table and two chairs, here I write all that I write in summer-time,

whether to my friends or to the public.... In the afternoon I return to

it again, and all the daylight that follows, except what is sometimes

devoted to a walk, is given to Homer." In the evening he devoted himself

to transcribing, so that his mornings and evenings were, for the most

part, completely engaged. He read also, but less than he wrote; "for I

must have bodily exercise," he said, "and therefore never let a day pass

without it." His walk was usually in the afternoon.

Lord Byron, who used to sit up at night writing "Don Juan," (which he

did under the influence of gin and water,) rose late in the morning.

Leigh Hunt thus describes him: "He breakfasted, read, lounged about,

singing an air, generally out of Rossini, and in a swaggering style,

though in a voice at once small and veiled; then took a bath and was

dressed, and coming down stairs, was heard, still singing, in the

court-yard, out of which the garden ascended at the back of the house.

The servants at the same time brought out two or three chairs. We then

lounged about, or sat and talked. In the course of an hour or two, being

an early riser, I used to go in to dinner. Lord Byron either stayed a

little longer, or went up stairs to his books and his couch. When the

heat of the day declined we rode out, either on horseback or in a

barouche, generally towards the forest. He was a good rider, graceful,

and kept a firm seat. In the evening I seldom saw him. He recreated

himself in the balcony, or with a book; and at night, when I went to

bed, he was just thinking of setting to work with 'Don Juan.' His

favorite reading was history and travels. His favorite authors were

Bayle and Gibbon. His favorite recreation was boating." Byron had

prodigious facility of composition. He was fond of suppers, and in

London, after supping at Rogers's and eating heartily, he would go home

and throw off sixty or eighty verses, which he would send to press the

next morning.

Goldsmith's desultory habits are quite characteristic. Irving says: "It

was his custom during the summer-time, when pressed by a multiplicity of

literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some particular task,

to take country lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow

or Edgeware road, and bury himself there for weeks and months together.

Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his room, at other times

he would stroll out along the lanes and hedgerows, and, taking out paper

and pencil, note down thoughts to be expanded and corrected at home."

Though he engaged to board with the family, his meals were generally

sent to him in his room, in which he passed the most of his time,

negligently dressed, with his shirt-collar open, busily engaged in

writing. Sometimes, probably when in moods of composition, he would

wander into the kitchen, without noticing any one, stand musing with his

back to the fire, and then hurry off again to his room, no doubt to

commit to paper some thought which had struck him. He was subject to

fits of wakefulness, and read much in bed; if not disposed to read, he

still kept the candle burning; if he wished to extinguish it, and it was

out of his reach, he flung his slipper at it, which would be found in

the morning near the overturned candlestick, daubed with grease. He is

said to have considered four lines of poetry a day good work.

He commenced his poem of "The Traveller" in Switzerland, but long kept

it back from publication, till Johnson's praise of it induced him to

prepare it for the press. It is said that, while for two years previous

to its publication he was employed in the drudgery of laborious

compilations for the booksellers, his few vacant hours were fondly

devoted to the patient revisal and correction of this his greatest poem;

pruning its luxuriances, or supplying its defects, till it appeared at

length finished with exactness and polished into beauty. While writing

his History of England, he would read Hume, Rapin-Thoyras, Carte, and

Kennet, in the morning, make a few notes, ramble with a friend into the

country about the skirts of "Merry Islington," return to a temperate

dinner and cheerful evening, and, before going to bed, write off what

had arranged itself in his head from the studies of the morning. In this

way he took a more general view of the subject, and wrote in a more free

and fluent style than if he had been mousing at the time among

authorities. The influence of this way of composing history is plainly

seen in the entertaining, but not immortal, volumes it produced.