THE VIEW UPON THE RIVER; A MAGNIFICENT PANORAMA--MR. AND MRS.
COOLEY--MATRIMONIAL INFELICITIES--THE CASE OF MRS. SAWYER; A
BLIGHTED LIFE--A PRESENT: OUR CENTURY PLANT AND ITS PECULIARITIES.
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We have a full view of the river from our chamber window, and it is a
magnificent spectacle that greets us as we rise in the morning and fling
the shutters wide open. The sun, in this early summer-time, has already
crept high above the horizon of the pine-covered shore opposite, and has
flooded the unruffled waters with its golden light until they are
transformed for us into a sea of flame. There comes a fleet of grimy
coal schooners moving upward with the tide, their dingy sails hanging
almost listless in the air; now they float, one by one, into the yellow
glory of the sunshine which bars the river from shore to shore. Yonder
is a tiny tug puffing valorously as it tows the great merchantman--home
from what distant land of wonders?--up to the wharves of the great city.
And look! there is another tug-boat going down stream, with a score of
canal-boats moving in huge mass slowly behind it. They come from far up
among the mountains of the Lehigh and the Schuylkill with their burdens
of coal, and they are bound for the Chesapeake. Those men lounging
lazily about upon the decks while the women are getting breakfast ready
spend their lives amid some of the wildest and noblest scenery in the
world. I would rather be a canal-boat captain, Mrs. Adeler, and through
all my existence float calmly and serenely amid those regions of beauty
and delight, without ever knowing what hurry is, than to be the greatest
and busiest of statesmen--that is, if one calling were as respectable
and lucrative as the other.
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That fellow upon the boat at the rear is playing upon his bugle. The
canal-boat bugler is not an artist, but he makes wonderful music
sometimes when he blows a blast up yonder in the heart of Pennsylvania,
and sets the wild echoes flying among the cañons of those mighty hills.
And even now it is not indifferent. Listen! The tones come to us
mellowed by the distance, and so indistinct that they have lost all but
the sweetness which makes them seem so like the sound of
"Horns of Elfland, faintly blowing."
That prosaic tooter floating there upon the river doubtless would be
surprised to learn that he is capable of such a suggestion; but he is.
Off there in the distance, emerging from the shadowy mantle of mist
that rests still upon the bosom of the stream to the south, comes
the steamboat from Salem, with its decks loaded down with rosy and
fragrant peaches, and with baskets of tomatoes and apples and potatoes
and berries, ready for the hungry thousands of the Quaker City. The
schooner lying there at the wharf is getting ready to move away, so
that the steamer may come in. You can hear the screech made by the
block as the tackle of the sail is drawn swiftly through it. Now she
swings out into the stream, and there, right athwart her bows, see that
fisherman rowing homeward with his net piled high in tangled meshes in
the bow of his boat. He has a hundred or two silver-scaled shiners at
his feet, I'll warrant you, and he is thinking rather of the price they
will bring than of the fact that his appearance in his rough batteau
gives an especially picturesque air to the beauty of that matchless
scene. I wish I was a painter. I would pay any price if I could fling
upon canvas that background of hazy gray, and place against it the fiery
splendor of the sunlit river, with steamer and ship and weather-beaten
sloop and fishing-boat drifting to and fro upon the golden tide.
There, too, is old Cooley, our next-door neighbor on the east. He is out
early this morning, walking about his garden, pulling up a weed here
and there, prowling among his strawberry vines and investigating the
condition of his early raspberries. That dog which trots behind him,
my dear, is the one that barked all night. I shall have to ask Cooley
to take him in the house after this. We had enough of that kind of
disturbance in the city; we do not want it here.
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"I don't like the Cooleys," remarked Mrs. A.
"Why not?"
"Because they quarrel with each other. Their girl told our girl that
'him and her don't hit it,' and that Mr. Cooley is continually having
angry disputes with his wife. She says that sometimes they even come to
blows. It is dreadful."
"It is indeed dreadful. Somebody ought to speak to Cooley about it. He
needs overhauling. Perhaps he is too ignorant a man to have perceived
the true road to happiness. Of course, Mrs. A., _you_ know the secret of
real happiness in married life?"
She said she had never thought much about it. She was happy, and it
seemed natural to be so. She thought it very strange that there should
ever be any other condition of things between man and wife.
"Mrs. Adeler, the secret of conjugal felicity is contained in this
formula: demonstrative affection and self-sacrifice. A man should not
only love his wife dearly, but he should tell her he loves her, and tell
her very often. And each should be willing to yield, not once or twice,
but constantly and as a practice, to the other. The man who never takes
the baby from his wife, who never offers to help her in her domestic
duties, who will sit idly by, indulging himself with repose while she
is overwhelmed with care and work among the children, or with other
matters, is a mean wretch who does not deserve to have a happy home. And
a wife who never holds up her husband's hands in his struggle with the
world, who displays no interest in his perplexities and trials, who has
never a word of cheer for him when he staggers under his heavy burden,
is not worthy the name of a wife. Selfishness, my dear, crushes out
love, and most of the couples who are living without affection for each
other, with cold and dead hearts, with ashes where there should be a
bright and holy flame, have destroyed themselves by caring too much for
themselves and too little for each other."
"To me," said Mrs. Adeler, "the saddest thing about such coldness and
indifference is that both the man and the woman must sometimes think of
the years when they loved each other."
"Yes, and can you imagine anything that would be more likely to give a
woman the heartache than such a recollection? When her husband comes
home and enters the house without a smile or a word of welcome; when
he growls at his meals, and finds fault with this and that domestic
arrangement; when he buries his nose in his newspaper after supper, and
never resurrects it excepting when he has a savage word of reproof for
one of his children, or when he goes out again to spend the evening and
leaves his wife alone, the picture which she brings up from the past
cannot be a very pleasant one.
"Indeed, my dear, the man's present conduct must fill the woman's
soul with bitter pain when she contrasts it with that which won her
affection. For there must have been a time when she looked forward
with joy to his coming, when he caressed her and covered her with
endearments, when he looked deep into her eyes and said that he
loved her, and when he said that he could have no happiness in this
world unless she loved him wholly and truly. When a man makes such a
declaration as that to a woman, he is a villain if he ever treats her
with anything but loving-kindness. And I take the liberty of doubting
whether he who leads a young girl into wedlock with such pledges, and
then acts in direct violation of them, ought not to be prosecuted for
obtaining valuable consideration upon false pretences. It is infinitely
worse, in my opinion, than stealing ordinary property."
Mrs. Adeler expressed the opinion that death at the stake might be
regarded as an appropriate punishment for criminals of this class.
"But there is a humorous side even to this melancholy business. Do you
remember the Sawyers, who used to live near us in the city? Well, before
Sawyer's marriage I was his most intimate friend; and when they returned
from their wedding-trip, of course I called upon them. Mrs. Sawyer
alone was at home, and after a brief discussion of the weather, the
conversation turned upon Sawyer. I had known him for many years, and I
took pleasure in making Mrs. Sawyer believe that he had as much virtue
as an omnibus load of patriarchs. Mrs. Sawyer assented joyously to it
all, but I thought I detected a shade of sadness on her face while she
spoke. I asked her if anything was the matter--if Sawyer's health was
not good.
"'Oh yes,' she said, 'very good indeed, and I love him dearly. He is the
best man in the world; but--but--'
"Then I assured Mrs. Sawyer that she might speak frankly to me, as
I was Sawyer's friend, and could probably smooth away any little
unpleasantness that might mar their happiness. She then said it was
nothing. It might seem foolish to speak of it; she knew it was not
her dear husband's fault, and she ought not to complain; but it was
hard, hard to submit when she reflected that there was but one thing
to prevent her being perfectly happy; yes, but one thing, 'for oh, Mr.
Adeler, I would ask for nothing more in this world if Ezekiel only had a
Roman nose!'
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"It is an awful thing, Mrs. Adeler, to think of two young lives being
made miserable for want of one Roman nose, isn't it?"
Mrs. A. gently intimated that she entertained a suspicion that I had
made up the story; and if I had not, why, then Mrs. Sawyer certainly was
a very foolish woman.
My wife's cousin, Bob Parker, came down a fortnight ago to stay a day or
two on his way to Cape May, with the intent to tarry at that
watering-place for a week or ten days, and then to return here to remain
with us for some time. Bob is a bright youth, witty in his own small
way, fond of using his tongue, and always overflowing with animal
spirits. He came partly to see us, but chiefly, I think, because he
cherishes a secret passion for a certain fair maid who abides here.
[Illustration]
He brought me a splendid present in the shape of an American agave, or
century plant. It was offered to him in Philadelphia by a man who
brought it to the store and wanted to sell it. The man said it had
belonged to his grandfather, and he consented to part with it only
because he was in extreme poverty. The man informed Bob that the plant
grew but half an inch in twenty years, and blossomed but once in a
century. The last time it bloomed, according to the information obtained
from the gray-haired grandsire of the man, was in 1776, and it would
therefore certainly burst out again in 1876. Patriotism and a desire to
have such a curiosity in the family combined to induce Mr. Parker to
purchase it at the price of fifty dollars.
I planted the phenomenon on the south side of the house, against the
wall. Two days afterward I called Bob's attention to the circumstance
that the agave had grown nearly three feet since it was placed in the
ground. This seemed somewhat strange after what the man said about
the growth of half an inch in two decades. But we concluded that the
surprising development must be due to the extraordinary fertility of the
soil, and Bob exulted as he thought how he had beaten the man by getting
a century plant so much larger and so much more valuable than he had
supposed. Bob said that the man would be wofully mad if he should call
and see that century plant of his grandfather's getting up out of the
ground so splendidly.
That afternoon we all went down to Cape May, and for two weeks we
remained there. Upon our return, Bob remarked, as we stepped from the
boat, that he wanted to go around the first thing and see how the plant
was coming on. He suggested gloomily that he should be bitterly
disappointed if it had perished from neglect during our absence.
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But it was not dead. We saw it as soon as we came near the house. It had
grown since our departure. It had a trunk as thick as my leg, and the
branches ran completely over three sides of the house; over the window
shutters, which were closed so tightly that we had to chop the century
plant away with a hatchet; over the roof, down the chimneys, which were
so filled with foliage that they wouldn't draw; and over the grapevine
arbor, in such a fashion that we had to cut away vines and all to get
rid of the intruder.
The roots, also, had thrown out shoots over every available square foot
of the yard, so that I had eight or ten thousand century plants in an
exceedingly thriving condition, while a branch had grown through the
open cellar window, and was getting along so finely that we could only
reach the coal-bin by tramping through a kind of an East Indian jungle.
Mr. Parker, after examining the vegetable carefully, observed:
"I'm kind of sorry I bought that century plant, Max. I have half an idea
that the man who sold it to me was a humorist, and that his
Revolutionary grandfather was an octogenarian fraud."
If anybody wants a good, strong, healthy century plant that will stand
any climate, and that is warranted to bloom in 1876, mine can be had for
a very reasonable price. This may be regarded as an unparalleled
opportunity for any young agriculturist who does not want to wait long
for his vegetables to grow.
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