"What is his name, old man? Don't you like to talk?"
"Adam Moss."
"Such a green, cool, soft name! It is like his house and yard and
garden. What does he do?"
"Whatever he pleases."
"You must not be impertinent to me, or I'll tell him. What does
he like?"
"Birds--red-birds. What do _you_ like?"
"Red-birds! How does he catch them? Throw salt on their tails?"
"He is a lover of Nature, madam, and particularly of birds."
"What does _he_ know about birds? Doesn't he care for people?"
"He doesn't think many worth caring for."
"Indeed! And _he_ is perfect, then, is he?"
"He thinks he is nearly as bad as any; but that doesn't make the
rest any better."
"Poor old gentleman! He must have the blues dreadfully. What does
he do with his birds? Eat his robins, and stuff his cats, and sell
his red-birds in cages?"
"He considers it part of his mission in life to keep them from
being eaten or stuffed or caged."
"And you say he is nearly a hundred?"
"He is something over thirty years of age, madam."
"Thirty? Surely we heard he was very old. Thirty! And does he
live in that beautiful little old house all by himself?"
"_I_ live with him!"
"_You_! Ha! ha! ha! And what is _your_ name, you dear good old
man?"
"Adam."
"_Two_ Adams living in the same house! Are you the _old_ Adam? I
have heard so much of him."
At this I rose, pushed back my hat, and looked up at her.
"_I_ am Adam Moss," I said, with distant politeness. "You can have
these strawberries for your breakfast if you want them."
There was a low quick "Oh!" and she was gone, and the curtains
closed over her face. It was rude; but neither ought she to have
called me the old Adam. I have been thinking of one thing: why
should she speak slightingly of _my_ knowledge of birds? What does
_she_ know about them? I should like to inquire.
Late this afternoon I dressed up in my high gray wool hat, my fine
long-tailed blue cloth coat with brass buttons, by pink waistcoat,
frilled shirt, white cravat, and yellow nankeen trousers, and
walked slowly several times around my strawberry bed. Did no see
any more ripe strawberries.
Within the last ten days I have called twice upon the Cobbs, urged
no doubt by an extravagant readiness to find them all that I feared
they were not. How exquisite in life is the art of not seeing many
things, and of forgetting many that have been seen! They received
me as though nothing unpleasant had happened. Nor did the elder
daughter betray that we had met. She has not forgotten, for
more than once I surprised a light in her eyes as though she were
laughing. She has not, it is certain, told even her mother and
sister. Somehow this fact invest her character with a charm as
of subterranean roominess and secrecy. Women who tell everything
are like finger-bowls of clear water.
But it is Sylvia that pleases me. She must be about seventeen; and
so demure and confiding that I was ready to take her by the hand,
lead her to the garden-gate, and say: Dear child, everything in
here--butterflies, flowers, fruit, honey, everything--is yours;
come and go and gather as you like.
Yesterday morning I sent them a large dish of strawberries, with
a note asking whether they would walk during the day over to my
woodland pasture, where the soldiers had a barbecue before setting
out for the Mexican war. The mother and Sylvia accepted. Our walk
was a little overshadowed by their loss; and as I thoughtlessly
described the gayety of that scene--the splendid young fellows
dancing in their bright uniforms, and now and then pausing to wipe
their foreheads, the speeches, the cheering, the dinner under the
trees, and, a few days later, the tear-dimmed eyes, the hand-wringing
and embracing, and at last the marching proudly away, each with a
Bible in his pocket, and many never, never to return--I was sorry
that I had not foreseen the sacred chord I was touching. But
it made good friends of us more quickly, and they were well-bred,
so that we returned to all appearance in gay spirits. The elder
daughter came to meet us, and went at once silently to her mother's
side, as though she had felt the separation. I wondered whether
she had declined to go because of the memory of her father. As
we passed my front gate, I asked them to look at my flowers. The
mother praised also the cabbages, thus showing an admirably balanced
mind; the little Sylvia fell in love with a vine-covered arbor;
the elder daughter appeared to be secretly watching the many birds
about the grounds, but when I pointed out several less-known species,
she lost interest.
What surprises most is that they are so refined and intelligent.
It is greatly to be feared that we Kentuckians in this part of the
State are profoundly ignorant as to the people in other parts. I
told Mrs. Walters this, and she, seeing that I am beginning to like
them, is beginning to like them herself. Dear Mrs. Walters! Her
few ideas are like three or four marbles on a level floor; they
have no power to move themselves, but roll equally well in any
direction you push them.
This afternoon I turned a lot of little town boys into my strawberry
bed, and now it looks like a field that had been harrowed and rolled.
I think they would gladly have pulled up some of the plants to see
whether there might not be berries growing on the roots.
It is unwise to do everything that you can for people at once; for
when you can do nothing more, they will say you are no longer like
yourself, and turn against you. So I have meant to go slowly with
the Cobbs in my wish to be neighborly, and do not think that they
could reasonably be spoiled on one dish of strawberries in three
weeks. But the other evening Mrs. Cobb sent over a plate of golden
sally-lunn on a silver waiter, covered with a snow-white napkin;
and acting on this provocation, I thought they could be trusted
with a basket of cherries.
So next morning, in order to save the ripening fruit on a rather small
tree of choice variety, I thought I should put up a scarecrow, and
to this end rummaged a closet for some last winter's old clothes.
These I crammed with straw, and I fastened the resulting figure
in the crotch of the tree, tying the arms to the adjoining limbs,
and giving it the dreadful appearance of shouting, "Keep out of
here, you rascals, or you'll get hurt!" And, in truth, it did look
so like me that I felt a little uncanny about it myself.
Returning home late, I went at once to the tree, where I found not
a quart of cherries, and the servants told of an astonishing thing:
that no sooner had the birds discovered who was standing in the
tree, wearing the clothes in which he used to feed them during the
winter, than the news spread like wildfire to the effect that he
had climbed up there and was calling out: "Here is the best tree,
fellows! Pitch in and help yourselves!" So that the like of the
chattering and fetching away was never seen before. This was the
story; but little negroes love cherries, and it is not incredible
that the American birds were assisted in this instance by a large
family of fat young African spoon-bills.
Anxious to save another tree, and afraid to use more of my own
clothes, I went over to Mrs. Walters, and got from her an old bonnet
and veil, a dress and cape, and a pair of her cast-off yellow
gaiters. These garments I strung together and prepared to look
life-like, as nearly as a stuffing of hay would meet the inner
requirements of the case. I them seated the dread apparition in the
fork of a limb, and awaited results. The first thief was an old
jay, who flew towards the tree with his head turned to one side
to see whether any one was overtaking him. But scarcely had he
alighted when he uttered a scream of horror that was sickening to
hear, and dropped on the grass beneath, after which he took himself
off with a silence and speed that would have done credit to a
passenger-pigeon. That tree was rather avoided for some days, or
it may have been let alone merely because others were ripening; so
that Mrs. Cobb got her cherries, and I sent Mrs. Walter some also
for the excellent loan of her veil and gaiters.
As the days pass I fall in love with Sylvia, who has been persuaded
to turn my arbor into a reading-room, and is often to be found
there of mornings with one of Sir Walter's novels. Sometimes I
leave her alone, sometimes lie on the bench facing her, while she
reads aloud, or, tiring, prattles. Little half-fledged spirit, to
whom the yard is the earth and June eternity, but who peeps over
the edge of the nest at the chivalry of the ages, and fancies that
she knows the world. The other day, as we were talking, she tapped
the edge of her _Ivanhoe_ with a slate-pencil--for she is also
studying the Greatest Common Divisor--and said, warningly, "You
must not make epigrams; for if you succeeded you would be brilliant,
and everything brilliant is tiresome."
"Who is your authority for _that_ epigram, Miss Sylvia?" I said,
laughing.
"Don't you suppose that I have any ideas but what I get from books?"
"You may have all wisdom, but those sayings proceed only from
experience."
"I have my intuitions; they are better than experience."
"If you keep on, _you_ will be making epigrams presently, and then
I shall find you tiresome, and go away."
"You couldn't. I am your guest. How unconventional I am to come
over and sit in your arbor! But it is Georgiana's fault."
"Did _she_ tell you to come?"
"No; but she didn't keep me from coming. Whenever any one
of us does anything improper we always say to each other, 'It's
Georgiana's fault. She ought not to have taught us to be so simple
and unconventional.'"
"And is she the family governess?"
"She governs the family. There doesn't seem to be any real
government, but we all do as she says. You might think at first
that Georgiana was the most light-headed member of the family, but
she isn't. She's deep. I'm shallow in comparison with her. She
calls me sophisticated, and introduces me as the elder Miss Cobb,
and says that if I don't stop reading Scott's novels and learn
more arithmetic she will put white caps on me, and make me walk to
church in carpet slippers and with grandmother's stick."
"But you don't seem to have stopped, Miss Sylvia."
"No; but I'm stopping. Georgiana always gives us time, but we get
right at last. It was two years before she could make my brother
go to West Point. He was wild and rough, and wanted to raise
tobacco, and float with it down to New Orleans, and have a good
time. Then when she had gotten him to go she was afraid he'd come
back, and so she persuaded my mother to live here, where there
isn't any tobacco, and where I could be sent to school. That took
her a year, and now she is breaking up my habit of reading nothing
but novels. She gets us all down in the end. One day when she
and Joe were little children they were out at the wood-pile, and
Georgiana was sitting on a log eating a jam biscuit, with her feet
on the log in front of her. Joe had a hand-axe, and was chopping
at anything till he caught sight of her feet. Then he went to the
end of the log, and whistled like a steamboat, and began to hack
down in that direction, calling out to her: 'Take your toes out of
the way, Georgiana. I am coming down the river. The current is
up and I can't stop.' 'My toes were there first,' said Georgiana,
and went on eating her biscuit. 'Take them out of the way, I tell
you,' he shouted as he came nearer, 'or they'll get cut off.' 'They
were there first,' repeated Georgiana, and took another delicious
nibble. Joe cut straight along, and went whack right into her five
toes. Georgiana screamed with all her might, but she held her foot
on the log, till Joe dropped the hatchet with horror, and caught
her in his arms. 'Georgiana, I _told_ you to take your toes away,'
he cried; 'you are such a little fool,' and ran with her to the
house. But she always had control over him after that."
To-day I saw Sylvia enter the arbor, and shortly afterwards I
followed with a book.
"When you stop reading novels and begin to read history, Miss
Sylvia, here is the most remarkable history of Kentucky that was
ever written or ever will be. It is by my father's old teacher of
natural history in Transylvania University, Professor Rafinesque,
who also had a wonderful botanical garden on this side of the town;
perhaps the first ever seen in this country."
"I know all about it," replied Sylvia, resenting this slight
upon her erudition. "Georgiana has my father's copy, and his was
presented to him by Mr. Audubon."
"Audubon?" I said, with a doubt.
"Never heard of Audubon?" cried Sylvia, delighted to show up my
ignorance.
"Only of the great Audubon, Miss Sylvia; the _great_, the very
_great_ Audubon."
"Well, this was the _great_, the very _great_ Audubon. He lived
in Henderson, and kept a corn-mill. He and my father were friends,
and he gave my father some of his early drawings of Kentucky
birds. Georgiana has them now, and that is where she gets her love
of birds--from my father, who got his from the _great_, the very
_great_ Audubon."
"Would Miss Cobb let me see these drawings?" I asked, eagerly.
"She might; but she prizes them as much as if they were stray leaves
out of the only Bible in the world."
As Sylvia turned inside out this pocket of her mind, there had
dropped out a key to her sister's conduct. Now I understood her
slighting attitude towards my knowledge of birds. But I shall
feel some interest in Miss Cobb from this time on. I never dreamed
that she could bring me fresh news of that rare spirit whom I have
so wished to see, and for one week in the woods with whom I would
give any year of my life. Are they possibly the Henderson family
to whom Audubon intrusted the box of his original drawings during
his absence in Philadelphia, and who let a pair of Norway rats rear
a family in it, and cut to pieces nearly a thousand inhabitants of
the air?
There are two more days of June. Since the talk with Sylvia I have
called twice more upon the elder Miss Cobb. Upon reflection, it
is misleading to refer to this young lady in terms so dry, stiff,
and denuded; and I shall drop into Sylvia's form, and call her
simply Georgiana. That looks better--Georgiana! It sounds well,
too--Georgiana!
Georgiana, then, is a rather elusive character. The more I see of
her the less I understand her. If your nature draws near hers, it
retreats. If you pursue, it flies--a little frightened perhaps.
If then you keep still and look perfectly safe, she will return,
but remain at a fixed distance, like a bird that will stay in your
yard, but not enter your house. It is hardly shyness, for she is not
shy, but more like some strain of wild nature in her that refuses
to be domesticated. One's faith is strained to accept Sylvia's
estimate that Georgiana is deep--she is so light, so airy, so
playful. Sylvia is a demure little dove that has pulled over itself
an owl's skin, and is much prouder of its wicked old feathers than
of its innocent heart; but Georgiana--what is she? Secretly an
owl with the buoyancy of a humming-bird? However, it's nothing to
me. She hovers around her mother and Sylvia with a fondness that
is rather beautiful. I did not mention the subject of Audubon and
her father, for it is never well to let an elder sister know that
a younger one has been talking about her. I merely gave her several
chances to speak of birds, but she ignored them. As for me and
_my_ love of birds, such trifles are beneath her notice. I don't
like her, and it will not be worth while to call again soon, though
it would be pleasant to see those drawings.
This morning as I was accidentally passing under her window I saw
her at it and lifted my hat. She leaned over with her cheek in
her palm, and said, smiling,
"You mustn't spoil Sylvia!"
"What is my definite offence in that regard?"
"Too much arbor, too many flowers, too much fine treatment."
"Does fine treatment ever harm anybody? Is it not bad treatment
that spoils people?"
"Good treatment may never spoil people who are old enough to know
its rarity and value. But you say you are a student of nature;
have you not observed that nature never lets the sugar get to things
until they are ripe? Children must be kept tart."
"The next time that Miss Sylvia comes over, then, I am to give
her a tremendous scolding and a big basket of green apples."
"Or, what is worse, suppose you encourage her to study the Greatest
Common Divisor? I am trying to get her ready for school in the
fall."
"Is she being educated for a teacher?"
"You know that Southern ladies never teach."
"Then she will never need the Greatest Common Divisor. I have
known many thousands of human beings, and none but teachers ever
have the least use for the Greatest Common Divisor."
"But she needs to do things that she dislikes. We all do."
I smiled at the memory of a self-willed little bare foot on a log
years ago.
"I shall see that my grape arbor does not further interfere with
Miss Sylvia's progress towards perfection."
"Why didn't you wish us to be your neighbors?"
"I didn't know that you were the right sort of people."
"_Are_ we the right sort?"
"The value of my land has almost been doubled."
It is a pleasure to know that you approve of us on those grounds.
Will the value of _our_ land rise also, do you think? And why do
you suppose we objected to _you_ as a neighbor?"
"I cannot imagine."
"The imagination can be cultivated, you know. Then tell me this:
why do Kentuckians in this part of Kentucky think so much of
themselves compared with the rest of the world?"
"Perhaps it's because they are Virginians. There may be various
reasons."
"Do the people ever tell what the reasons are?"
"I have never heard one."
"And if we stayed here long enough, and imitated them very closely,
do you suppose we would get to feel the same way?"
"I am sure of it."
"It must be so pleasant to consider Kentucky the best part of
the world, and _your_ part of Kentucky the best of the State, and
_your_ family the best of all the best families in that best part,
and yourself the best member of your family. Ought not that to
make one perfectly happy?"
"I have often observed that it seems to do so."
"It is delightful to remember that _you_ approve of us. And we
should feel _so_ glad to be able to return the compliment. Good-bye!"
Any one would have to admit, however, that there is no sharpness
in Georgiana's pleasantry. The child-nature in her is so sunny,
sportive, so bent on harmless mischief. She still plays with life
as a kitten with a ball of yarn. Some day Kitty will fall asleep
with the Ball poised in the cup of one foot. Then, waking, when
her dream is over, she will find that her plaything has become
a rocky, thorny, storm-swept, immeasurable world, and that she, a
woman, stands holding out towards it her imploring arms, and asking
only for some littlest part in its infinite destinies.
After the last talk with Georgiana I felt renewed desire to see those
Audubon drawings. So yesterday morning I sent over to her some
things written by a Northern man, whom I call the young Audubon
of the Maine woods. His name is Henry D. Thoreau, and it is, I
believe, known only to me down here. Everything that I can find of
his is as pure and cold and lonely as a wild cedar of the mountain
rocks, standing far above its smokeless valley and hushed white
river. She returned them to-day with word that she would thank me
in person, and to-night I went over in a state of rather senseless
eagerness.
Her mother and sister had gone out, and she sat on the dark porch
alone. The things of Thoreau's have interested her, and she asked
me to tell her all I knew of him, which was little enough. Then
of her own accord she began to speak of her father and Audubon--of
the one with the worship of love, of the other with the worship
of greatness. I felt as though I were in a moonlit cathedral; for
her voice, the whole revelation of her nature, made the spot so
impressive and so sacred. She scarcely addressed _me_; she was
communing with them. Nothing that her father told her regarding
Audubon appears to have been forgotten; and, brought nearer than
ever before to that lofty, tireless spirit in its wanderings through
the Kentucky forests, I almost forgot her to whom I was listening.
But in the midst of it she stopped, and it was again kitten and yarn.
I left quite as abruptly. Upon my soul, I believe that Georgiana
doesn't think me worth talking to seriously.