D
DEAR SISTERS:—Life is a pleasant thing to have when its chariot-wheels revolve in smooth places. I went to bed last night angry with Cousin E. E. Ever since Mr. Burke was introduced into our party she has exhibiteda desire for gentlemen's attention which I think entirely unbecoming a married lady. I do not wish to be severe or captious; such feelings should be left to maiden ladies of an age that I have not yet dreamed of reaching. But a married woman who hankers after any other man's society than that of her own lawful husband is—well, not to speak harshly, an example that some people may follow, but I won't.
This morning, as we sat on the long stoop of the hotel, gazing out on the broad expanse of the boundless ocean, Mr. Burke came gently to my side, and spoke:
"Miss Frost."
My heart beat; my eyelids dropped, but I lifted them, in shy innocence, to his face, inquiringly, wistfully. What would he say next?
"Miss Frost, have you ever seen a clam-bake?"
I reflected a moment. Were clam-bakes indigenous to our Vermont soil? Were they a product of the mountains, or a spontaneous growth of the river vales?
"I do not think I have ever seen them growing in Vermont," says I, at last; "yet there are few roots or vegetables, wild or tame, that I don't know something about. There is wake-robin, on the mountains, with its spokes of red berries; and snake-root, and adder's-tongue; but I don't remember clam-bakes among them, and I know they are not cultivated in our parts as garden-sas, I beg pardon, as vegetables."
Mr. Burke smiled out loud, and his black mustache curled down on each side of his lips delightfully.
"I fancy you have never seen anything of the kind in Vermont. Clam-bakes are only found at the sea-side—principally around Rhode Island. I don't think they prevail much in the mountains, as yet."
"You don't say so!" says I. "Then they are a salt-water plant?"
"Principally found in the sand and mud."
"That don't seem to me very remarkable," says I; "most vegetables are found in one or the other. Watermelons, for instance,grow best in a bare sand-bank: perhaps your new-fangled vegetable is of that species?"
Again his black mustache gave a lovely curl, and his black eyes looked into mine so tenderly, as if something I had said tickled him almost to death.
"Youarean original creature," said he.
I put one hand on my heart, and bowed.
"People about Sprucehill, especially the Society of Infinite Progress, have done me the honor to think so," says I.
"But about the clam-bake—if you like it, we must start for Pleasure Bay at once," says Mr. Burke.
"Do they grow down there?" says I.
"Not as a general thing, but we shall make out to get one up, with a little trouble."
"Do they grow so deep?" says I.
"You will see when we get there. Mrs. Dempster is ready, and the carriage is waiting."
To please that man I would have done almost anything; but it did seem a wild-goose chase for a lot of grown people to rush down to Pleasure Bay for the fun of pulling up a lot of the strangest vegetables that ever grew.
"Do make haste!" cried E. E. through the green slats of her window-blinds.
I got up and shook out my dress.
"It will be such fun!" she called out. "Mr. Burke has been so kind as to invite us, so don't keep him waiting."
I lifted my eyes to the dark orbs of that noble-looking man, and he must have known from the expression that I did not mean to keep him waiting in any respect. Gently bending my head, I withdrew.
I came from my room like a moving picture, with my black alpaca newly flounced, and surmounted by that fleecy white jacket with great buttons and double-breasted in front. Then my white hat, curled up victoriously, and the feather waving above it and curlecued around it, was enough to tantalize a minister.
Mr. Burke smiled graciously when he saw me come forth clad in the whiteness of my principles, and I knew that the sympathy between us was national as well as individual.
E. E. came out of her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish Dempster had been close by, to see for himself, that's all.
If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is a flirty married woman.
We rode down to Pleasure Bay, four in the carriage, with that child perched up alongside of the driver. E. E. wanted to sit opposite to Mr. Burke, and, seized with a fit of extra politeness for that occasion only, insisted on it that I should get in first—which would have brought me face to face with Dempster. But I, too, was suffering under a sudden epidemic of good manners, and stepped back, bowing till the white feather shaded my face. She kept waving her hand; but I would not be persuaded into pushing myself before a married woman, and at last she got in, biting her lips as if she had a tenpenny nail between her teeth. I followed, looking innocent as a cat with cream on its tongue, and away we went.
T
TWO carriage-loads of people were at Pleasure Bay, wandering about under the trees in front of the hotel. Down between them and the bank was a lot of men piling up a heap of round stones and crossing sticks of wood over them till a high sort of a cross-beam pinnacle was built,to which one of the men set fire. Mercy, how it blazed up and flashed through the cracks in the wood! They seemed to enjoy the blaze, and worked like beavers around it—though I don't know how a beaver works, never having seen one.
Some of the men went down to the water, and, dragging up great armfuls of dark green and yellow grass, swelled out here and there with bulbs and blisters, laid it in a heap before the fire. Some of the others sat down on the rocks, with pails of potatoes and sweet corn between their knees, which they began to wash and tie up in their husks.
I was awful curious to know what all this was about, but made up my mind to wait and see; for Mr. Burke seemed so anxious and busy that I didn't want to stop him by asking questions.
When the wet weeds, potatoes, and corn came on, I thought that the next thing would be some clam-bake; but instead of that, a fellow came down from the house with a lot of young chickens, picked clean, which he carried by the legs, and another loafed up from the water with three great horrid green monsters, like crabs swelled out—green as the sea-weed, and so dreadfully crawly that the very sight of them made me creep all over.
"What on earth are those creatures?" says I to Dempster; "mammoth cockroaches that have taken to a seafaring life, or what?"
"Why, lobsters," says he.
"Lobsters!" says I. "Not a bit of it. All the lobsters I have ever seen were bright red, and still as mice."
"That was after they were cooked," says he. "Wait till these come out, and they'll be red enough, I promise you."
Well, I waited and watched, for what these men were up to was more than I could make out. When the wood was all burned down they brushed the coals and ashes away with an old broom, and two colored men came up from the shore, carrying a two-bushel basket full of little longish-round creatures, hard as stone, and with a long black sort of a knot hangingout of one end. They were dripping wet, and pieces of sea-weed clung to them, as if they grew in the water like the crabs and lobsters.
Well, when the ashes were swept away, and nothing but the hot stones were left crowded close together, the two nig—well, colored persons, lifted that great basket between them and poured the round creatures among the hot stones till they sissed again. Then they piled on a heap of sea-weed, and a cloud of steam came pouring through. Then another layer, and over that the potatoes and corn were poured down and laid on. Then another layer of weeds, and the chickens and three great large fish, done up in cloths, were laid out for a steaming, and with them those live, green lobsters. Oh, mercy! how they did spread their claws and crawl through the sea-weed! It was enough to make you creep all over; but the men soon smothered them with steaming grass, which heaved up and down for a while, and then sank off, till the lobsters lay as dead as the chickens, and made no more fuss about being roasted alive.
By this time the whole heap—grass, chickens, corn, lobsters, and other shell creatures—was big as a small haystack. At last the two colored persons came down with a long tin pail, in which was a roll of butter and some vinegar. They sunk the pail down into the steaming sea-grass, clapped the corn on, and buried it with all the rest. Then more sea-weed and an old boat-sail flung over all, and that little mountain of roasting things was left to steam and sizzle while the whole party went to take a walk along the shore.
Mr. Burke kept by my side, and part of the time he carried my parasol, shading my face with it in the tenderest way.
He said something about the clam-bake, but I had really got so sick of everything in the fish, fowl, or vegetable line, that a curiosity, more or less, was of no consequence, so I said I should know how I liked clam-bakes better when I had seen one.
He answered that would be soon, for half an hour was enough to put one through.
Sisters, I was in no sort of hurry about it, for the rest of them were busy chatting and talking, so that we were just as good as alone, and the moments were precious as gold sands in an hour-glass.
By and by some one set up a shout. Mr. Burke wheeled right round, and says he:
"They are going to open the clam-bake; come and see it done?"
H
HE walked fast. I followed him with reluctant footsteps. What did I care for clam-bakes or any other new-fangled vegetable while he was by my side?
The crowd were all around that heap of sea-weed when we came up. Men, women, Irish help, and nig—well, colored freemen, with eager eyes and open mouths, were waiting for the sail-cloth to be taken off. On the grass, under the trees, a great long table was set out with plates, glasses, castors, and things. At the end, two pails of ice, with the necks of a dozen bottles peeping up like hungry birds in a nest, stood ready for somebody to uncork.
Well, the nig—freedman gave that sail a jerk, and a cloud of salty steam rolled up from the sea-grass. Then he raked away a winrow of that, dug out a pail of melted butter and vinegar, and held a lobster up by one claw, looking red as a British soldier's jacket. The creature had given up fighting, and hung in his hand meek as Moses. The poor thing was green enough when he went in, but came out blazing red and steaming hot.
More sea-weed; chickens dripping with gravy; heaps of corn; potatoes, mealy, and broken open; fish, and then thoselongish-round shell things, heaped in plates and dishes, were carried off to the table. We followed those dishes; we sat down to eat. Those longish hard-shelled creatures had all burst open, and something that smelt delicious lay inside, with black heads sticking out.
I watched to see what the rest did with those animals, then seized one by the head, drew him out, soused him in the melted butter, and dropped him softly into my open mouth.
"Delicious, scrumptious, beyond anything I ever ate in my life," says I, when Mr. Burke leaned toward me and wanted to know how I liked it. "But what are these black-headed things with shells, called?"
"Oh, soft-shells—the best part of the clam-bake, I think," says he.
"I reckon you are right," says I, taking another little fellow by the nape of the neck, and biting him off at the shoulders. Then I drank a glass of the sparklingest cider you ever tasted, and went in for an ear of corn, smoking hot, and the breast of a chicken.
Mr. Burke wanted me to eat some of the red lobster, but the thought of it made me creep all over, so I asked to be excused, and said I preferred a dozen or two more soft-shells.
There was a good deal of first-rate cider drank around that table, and we left a bushel of open shells under the trees, besides a heap of lobsters, clams, and chicken bones, well picked.
Then we went back to look at the place where they had been cooked, and found nothing but a heap of smoking stones, a ring of burnt grass, and a pile of steamy sea-weed. Somehow, the sight of it all made me feel sort of faint, and it didn't seem to me that I should ever want to eat or drink again.
We went home from Pleasure Bay in the carriage, feeling lazy and kind of half sea-sick.
That night I dreamed that a whole regiment of green lobsters were crawling over my bed, clawing at me fiercely as they went. Then I thought that Mr. Burke came and shoved themoff with both arms flung out, and invited me to breakfast on a heap of empty shells, dipped in butter, which set awful heavy on my stomach.
In fact, I had a worrying night, and got up feeling as if I had been feasting on tenpenny nails and roasted flat-irons.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—You haven't the least idea of what warm weather is in Vermont. Why, if one of your mountain trout streams could have run through New York, it would have boiled over and cooked the poor little speckled creatures that live in its waves. You never saw anything like it in your born days. The sea breezes at Long Branch seemed to come over an ocean of melted lead, blasted up by some old furnace of a volcano. For one whole week I was just dying of envy, when I thought of the pigs roving loose in our village, with such lovely mud puddles to lie down in, without caring a sumarke whether their clothes were mussed—excuse that word, I got it here in York—or not.
While I was panting for breath on the sea-shore, I could think of them, with home-sick longing, up to their throats in the soft, mushy fluid of a delicious puddle, with swarms of yellow butterflies rising, floating, and settling around them, as if a bed of primroses had got tired of growing in one place, and had burst off on a grand spree through the air, settling down for a drink now and then.
Yes, sisters, I was brought, in the hot blast of those summer days, to a state of unchristian envy, and would have been glad to swap places with flounders, or have slept in some cellar, with a block of ice for a pillow.
But nothing that I ever saw lasts for ever, or if it does I haven't lived long enough to prove it. Still, one gets restless in weather like this, when human beings are dropping down dead in the streets of a city close by in dozens, from sunstrokes.
This morning I sat in my room, with a short gown and not over many skirts on, looking through the green slats of my door, and watching the sunshine shimmer down on the waves where the little white vessels were folding their sails, and going to sleep like birds too lazy for flying, when a colored person came to my door, and says he:
"Mr. Burke's compliments, and will Miss Frost take a walk with him on the beach?"
I started up, and, says I:
"Won't I!" Then I composed myself, and sent back compliments, and Miss Frost will have great pleasure in complying with Mr. Burke's polite invitation.
When the—colored messenger was gone, I sat down in the Boston rocker, clasped my hands, and drew a deep, deep sigh of ecstatic expectation. Then I remembered that he was waiting, and sprang to my feet.
With my two shaking hands I fastened the other woman's hair over my own, that would neither curl nor friz worth a cent that awful hot day. Then I put on a white muslin dress, that looked seraphically innocent, and tightened it up with a plaid silk sash, that circled my slender waist and floated off like a rainbow breaking through a cloud.
Then I took my parasol in one hand, held my flowing skirts up with the other, and went forth to meet my destiny. Oh, how my feet longed to dance! How my girlish heart beat and fluttered in this innocent bosom.
He was waiting for me in the long stoop, leaning against a post, and fanning his manly head with the broad brim of his Panama hat. Oh, how majestic, how—but language fails me here.
Arm in arm we walked along the beach. He leaned towardme, I leaned with gentle heaviness on him—delightful reciprocity—eloquent silence. A soft breeze blew up from the ocean, and kissed us both with refreshing softness.
"Ah!" said the noble man by my side, "this is delicious."
"Deliriously so," I murmured.
"You feel the revivifying effect?" says he.
"Exquisitely," says I, leaning a little more confidingly on his stalwart arm.
He bent his stately head and looked down into my eyes. Sisters, the thrill of that glance shook my delicate frame as bumble-bees set a full-blown rose to trembling when they swarm in its heart.
"Shall we go down to the sands?" says he; "the incoming tide is dashing them with coolness."
I understood the delicate meaning conveyed in these words. Nothing could be more exquisitely suggestive. The tide—what was that but his own noble self? The sands—pure, white, untrodden—in my whole life I never heard anything more typical.
"If you desire it," I said.
"If I desire it. Ah! Miss Frost, it is for you to say."
My heart leaped to this as a speckled trout snaps at a fly. Nothing so near a proposal had ever reached me before. But a New England woman is modest; she does not snatch at the first offer—far from it. I pretended not to understand the badly hidden meaning of his metaphor. A little art of this kind is feminine and excusable, even in a young girl dignified with Society membership and a mission. I felt that he could appreciate it. He did. Some people were below us on the sands. They paused to look up as this noble creature handed me down those wooden steps. The effect must have been artistical. My cloud-like skirts floated softly on the zephyrs. My scarf streamed out like a banner. I am afraid the curve of my boot might have been seen from below, for many admiring faces were turned that way, and Mr. Burke cast his eye downward in a fugitive manner.
At last we reached the sands, on which both the sun and waves were beating luminously. By a ridge of white sand he paused.
"Shall we sit here?" says he, with tender questioning.
"Anywhere," says I, with sweet feminine complacency.
Then I dropped down on the sand ridge, and sweeping my skirts together, cast a timid glance up and around.
That noble man was spreading a silk umbrella. There was a hitch in the spring, and, such was his eager impatience to occupy the seat I had so delicately suggested, that a real naughty word broke from his lips—a word I, as a missionary, never could forgive, if it hadn't been the proof of such loving impatience. As it was, like a recording angel, I blotted it out of my memory with a forgiving sigh.
That refractory umbrella was hoisted at last, and its owner placed himself on the sand beside me, holding it not seaward, but like a tent, shading us two from the whole world, while the sun took care of itself.
"This," says he, "is a sweet relief. Don't you find it so, Miss Frost?"
I answered him with a sigh, soft, but audible.
"Yes, one can draw a full breath here," says he. "I was sure you would enjoy it."
"I do, indeed," says I, playing with the sand in the innocence of my heart.
Evidently embarrassed by deep feeling, he too began to sift the white sand through his fingers, which came so near mine that they made me catch my breath for fear he might clasp them. On the contrary, he gave up the temptatious exercise, and throwing a generous restraint on himself, began to talk metaphorically and metaphysically about many things, especially about gathering maple-sap, of which he questioned me tenderly, veiling the hidden meaning in his heart, by a seeming interest in our trees.
He asked me, with infinite meaning in his voice, at what period the sparkling sap began to mount up from the curly rootsof our maples, and vivify the trunk, twigs, and branches of that noble tree.
I understood his meaning, delicately veiled as it was. He wished to reveal his contempt of young saplings compared to the vigorous tree. It was a poetic way of comparing young snips of things with whole-souled girls, who had all the bloom of youth, and all the strength of maturity.
I spoke my mind on the subject. I said that strength, greenness, a full-grown trunk were necessary before sweet wholesome sap could circulate from root to top of a sugar maple. That saplings amounted to just nothing at all. In fact, they kept absorbing, but gave forth nothing; that a rich maturity was desirable before the maple became important as a forest-tree or an object of wealth.
I think he understood me—or rather he understood that I, with the exquisite intuition of genius, understood him. For right off, on that, he said that he would like to live in Vermont, and own maple-trees himself; that native sugar was a sweet business, and must have a softening tendency upon those who entered into it.
He sometimes bought it of little boys in the cars, and always felt a soothing influence after eating it, that made him long to drink the native sap fresh from the tree. In fact, he took a deep interest in Vermont and all its institutions.
While we were talking on these sweet subjects, quite a breeze sprang up from the water.
Things brighten around us. The sky looked blue. The heaving waves of the ocean began to swell and sparkle as if a diamond mine were breaking up in their depths. I am satisfied that Long Branch is all that it has been cracked up to be—and more too, when kindred souls meet on its sandy shores.
"How bright! how beautiful!" says he, backing off suddenly from the maple question, which had covered a world of hidden meaning, and looking out to sea, with a delicate wish, no doubt, to spare my blushes.
"Some persons have been kind enough to think so," says I, "but it isn't for me to say."
"I love the fitful changes—the soft transparency: nothing can be more lovely," says he.
The occasion required downcast eyes and shrinking silence. I gave him both. There could be no better answer for a speech so personal and yet so poetic.
"I hope you share my feelings in this."
That moment—that precious, precious moment—was broken in upon in a way that makes me clench my teeth as I write. Up the sands, racing forward like a young colt, came "that child," with her flat flying back by the strings, and a broken parasol in her hand; up she flew toward Mr. Burke.
"Come here," says she, "I want you to whip that boy out there within an inch of his life. I broke my parasol over his head, but it wasn't half enough; I want you to give it to him good."
"But what has he done," says Mr. Burke, no doubt riled to the depths of his noble heart, as I was.
"Done enough, I should think. He mimicked the way I carried my parasol, and said some folks wanted to be young ladies before they could read—that's what he has done," says the creature, flaming out like a bantam.
"Perhaps we had better go in," says Mr. Burke, lifting himself out of the sand.
"Not till you've given him hail Columbia," says the creature, taking a new grip on her broken parasol.
"I rather think he has got that," says Mr. Burke, reaching out his hand to help me up.
I arose. I jerked that Leghorn flat by the strings, and tied it under the creature's chin with a pull that made her scream. Then I took Mr. Burke's arm and mounted the wooden steps, with a feeling at my heart that is not to be described by mortal pen. What a world of bliss that wicked little wretch broke in upon. His soul was verging towards mine so beautifully. The final words were burning on his lips when she rushed in. Still,memory is left, reason is left. I know what was in that noble heart, and that knowledge is bliss.
I felt this: I knew his meaning. To a common woman he might have said, "I love you dearly. I wish above all things to spend my life with you;" but to a creature made up of sensitive pride and poetic niceties, unclothed proposals of this kind must be quite out of place. Of course I understood all that, and felt the refinement of his conduct deeply.
What morecoulda man say than this? In order to be delicately personal, one must talk by comparisons. To praise the State one is born in, is to praise one's self. To seize upon any material thing for a poetical comparison with a human being, is to be intensely complimentary to that being.
For the first time in my life I feel the sweet certainty of duplication. My heart swells with the beautiful faith of hope deferred. Those heavenly lines we have sung so often together in our meeting-house come back to my mind—
"To patient faith the prize is sure—"
"To patient faith the prize is sure—"
"To patient faith the prize is sure—"
I dare not go farther and complete the rhyme, because human sensation should not encroach on the divine; but the spirit of that hymn sings in my heart; for if there is anything on this earth that woman should be grateful for, it is love.
Yes, my sisters, at last I feel that I am beloved. A ray of sympathetic feeling has darted from a grand and noble soul to mine, changing that dull, sandy coast to Elysium.
Last night, when I retired to the secrecy of my chamber, it seemed to me that if ever a woman's heart—beg pardon, a young girl's heart—was born again, mine had become more tenderly infantine than it was when I lay one week old in my loving mother's arms.
The moonlight was streaming through the muslin curtains of my room when I entered it. It was an ovation of silvery light dawning upon the new life that opens before me. I do not know how other people feel when the crisis of fate is on them, but in my heart there is room for nothing but infinite thankfulness.
Yes, sisters, I think you can conscientiously congratulate me. Virtue does sometimes meet with its own reward, especially when it is combined with youthfulness, elegance, and high mental attributes.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—The cruelty of one female woman to another is something awful. As a general thing, E. E. Dempster is a good-natured, amiable person, but her conduct on the very day after that heavenly season on the shore was worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. She has lacerated the heart in my bosom, and torn me away from this place like a ruthless highwayman. That is what she has done.
Early in the morning, while I was dreaming sweetly of the sea-shore, that unfeeling female rushed into my room.
"Phœmie," says she, "you can't sleep any longer. We are packing up for the city. Cecilia has been insulted here, and I won't stay another hour in the place."
"What! what is it?" says I. "How could you! He was just giving up metaphor and coming squarely out in the sweetest way."
"You will have no more than time to pack your trunk before the train starts," says she.
"Starts—what for! where?"
"For New York, and after that to Saratoga; Cecilia insists on it, poor, sweet darling."
"For New York?" says I.
"On the way to Saratoga."
"But—but who is going. Is—is—?"
"Why, you and I, Dempster, and that sweet, ill-used child. Would you believe it, that rude boy's father refuses to whiphim, and said a girl that could give a black eye with her parasol was—well, I can't find the heart to repeat it. At any rate, she doesn't stay another hour under the same roof with that little fiend."
"But is that all—Oh, tell me is no one else going?" says I feeling as if a ton of lead had been heaped on me.
"Dear me. There is no one else to care for the poor child. Of course, no one will take it up but us. So make haste."
Out she went, leaving me just heart-broken and ready to give up. How could I go? how could I leave him and "the Branch," as if my soul were fleeing from his?
It was of no use. E. E. was set upon going, and I couldn't help myself.
Well, sisters, two hours after I left that bed we had packed up bag and baggage, given a cart-load of trunks for the express-men to smash or carry, just as they liked, and then took a little run of railroad, and a sail in a steamboat so grand and airy, and no ending, that we began to feel sorry that James Fisk was dead, or that his splendid ghost didn't roam along the steamboat track and keep things ship-shape, as he left them.
Well, in that steamboat we reached New York, warm, restless, and nigh about ready to give out, or take a friendly sunstroke and be peaceably carried away to a cool vault in some shady graveyard.
I mentioned this alternative to Cousin Dempster, but he shook his head and answered that some of us might find ourselves waking up in a more uncomfortable place than the streets of New York; which I thought impossible, but said nothing.
Well, we had a few hours to stay in the city before a boat would be ready to take us to Saratoga Springs—a name that sounded so cool and refreshing, that I longed to get there and breathe again.
Cousin E. E. said, when we went ashore:
"Phœmie," says she, "there are a few hours before us; suppose we go a-shopping? I want ever so many things. Saratoga is a dressy place, and I haven't a thing to wear."
Then, before I could object, says she to Dempster:
"A check, my dear, or if you have the funds on hand."
Dempster gave a sigh that shook his manly bosom through and through, and says he:
"There," drawing a roll of bank bills from his vest pocket, "will that do?"
E. E. unrolled the bills and sorted them out.
"Ten, twenty, fifty, ten, ten, ten, fif— Why, Dempster, what do you mean? How far will a hundred and fifty dollars go? I want to spend more than that on Valenciennes lace for Cecilia's dress. The child must have something to wear."
She spoke in a grieved, half-angry way, that touched Dempster to the heart. He took out his pocket-book, but not another sign of money was in it. Then he felt in three or four pockets with the air of a man who was tormented with doubts of finding anything. At last he stopped looking.
"I haven't another red cent about me, dear. Indeed I haven't."
"Dear me, what am I to do? There is a guipure sacque at Stewart's that I must have."
"Couldn't you get along without it?" says Dempster, with such pathetic earnestness that I really felt sorry for him.
"Get along without it! How can you ask?"
"That Brussels lace thing," faltered Dempster.
"What, that? I have had it six months at least; besides, I saw another just like it at the hotel, and that is enough to disgust one with anything. If people will pattern after me, I can't help it. Then again one gets so tired of the same thing."
"But I have no more money."
"Can't you draw a check?"
"My check-book is at the office."
"Always so when I want anything. Now, Dempster, this is too bad."
"Well," says Dempster, desperately, "get the thing, and tell Stewart to charge it?"
Cousin E. E. turned her face away. It was awful cloudy, and I could see that she was biting her lips. She had an awful long bill at Stewart's already. Then her face lighted up.
"Can't I have them sent C. O. D., by express? You will have time to get plenty of money before then," says she, as soft as silk weed.
"I hate the system," says Dempster; "money in hand is the only way a lady should make purchases. Then she knows what she is about. Everything else leads to extravagance. I hate bills as if they were copperheads; they are things I never will forgive."
I saw that E. E. turned pale, and a red flush came around her eyes as if she were just ready to burst out a-crying.
Dempster thought it was because he had stood out about the money and gave in a trifle.
"For this once," says he, "have the things charged, but bring the bill with you. I must know what I am about in these matters."
"But I mightn't find them all in one place. Hadn't we better make it a C. O. D., just for once?" says she, pleading for her own way as if her mouth were full of humble pie.
"Do as you please for this once," says he, half out of patience, "but remember, I am set against bills and running accounts—pay as you go along, is my motto."
E. E. drew a deep breath, and, putting the money in a little mite of a leather satchel fastened to her side by a belt, took up her parasol and prepared to march off.
Cecilia followed after, surveying her little toadstool of a parasol, and stooping forward as she walked, like an undersized kangaroo.
I only wish E. E., or even Cousin Dempster, could see that child as I see her. But they can't. Where she is concerned, they seem born fools, both of them.
Well, off we went one way, and Dempster the other—he to get the money, and his wife to spend it. I looked on, and wondered how any man living could afford to get married. Thewhole thing made me down-hearted, and half-ashamed of my relationship with a woman who could worry money out of her husband like that, and not feel how mean she was—could not my cousin see that she was poisoning the soul of her own child by an example which she was just as certain to follow as she was to live.
Well, we got into a carriage and drove up Broadway; but instead of going to Stewart's great marble building, E. E. stopped at some other places, and kept buying and buying till I got tired out, and sat on a round stool by the counter, saying nothing, but thinking a good deal. Each place we left, I heard her say, "Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga: C. O. D.," till I got tired to death of the word.
At one place my cousin and that child had a grand set-to in the store. Cecilia wanted a bright-red silk dress to wear under her lace one; but E. E. liked blue best, and ordered it. Then Cecilia declared she didn't want any dress at all, broke her new parasol striking it against the counter, and ended off by flinging herself down on a stool and drumming her feet against the counter—so mad that she cried till everybody in the store heard her.
Of course E. E. gave in, just to pacify her, while I would have given fifty of the brightest silver dollars ever issued by the U. S. Government, for the happiness of giving her the neatest little trouncing she ever got in her life. But luxuries like these, I can hardly expect just yet. How that cousin of mine can give up a parental prerogative so tempting to the hands I cannot imagine. I really would not put so much pleasure off an hour.
W
WELL, after trapesing about from one store to another till I was nigh about tired to death, E. E. concluded that she had got through her shopping, except a few things that we could carry in our pockets, which kept us rushing in and out of every little shop we came to for an hour longer. Then she said we would stop into Purssell's and get something to eat, for she was beginning to feel hungry. This had been the case with me ever so long; not that I hankered much in hot weather for hearty food, but I felt a sort of faintness; and when she said something about Purssell's having delicious peaches, I knew that they were exactly the thing which would appease all the internal longing of my nature.
But just as my mouth was beginning to water, E. E. took out her watch and gave a little scream.
"Why," says she, "who would a-thought it? We have but just fifteen minutes to reach the boat in?"
My heart sank. The taste of those peaches had almost got into my mouth, but now a taste of dust came in their place. I could just have sat down and cried.
"Never mind," says E. E.; "we can get dinner on board."
"Dinner on board!" Thin soup; hot meat down in the bottom of a steamboat, with a smell of oil, sour water, and musty linen all around you—that is what "a dinner on board" means, and nothing else. The very thought made me feel rily about the temper—all that I wanted was some peaches.
You will not wonder, sisters, that I hankered after this delicious fruit, which is about the only good thing that grows which we do not have in the old Vermont State. Only think of them—round, plump, juicy; with the redness of a warm sunset burning on one side, and pale-gold glowing on the other; cool, delicious, melting away in the mouth with a flavor that justmakes you want to kiss some smiling baby while it is on your lips! Think of them! then imagine my feelings when I was hurried into a hack, and rattled off to the steamboat with the promise of a hot dinner in its internal regions. We saw peaches on every hand as we drove along—in stores, on street tables, in baskets carried by Irish women, who looked up at the carriage-window pleadingly as we drove along.
"Wait one minute," says I, as a woman came up with her long basket brimming over with the luscious fruit; "I must have some peaches."
"Not a second," says E. E.; "don't you see Dempster beckoning from the deck? The last bell is ringing. Come, come!"
The Irish woman lifted up her basket, and stood there enticing me. E. E. rushed up the plank, calling out: "Make haste, make haste!"
Cecilia sung out: "Come along, Phœmie!"
Two men had hold of the plank bridge. I had to cross then, or be left behind. I cast one yearning look towards the basket, rushed up the plank, and stood panting, by the side of Dempster.
"Oh dear, it is too bad!" says I.
"What is it, Phœmie?" says Dempster.
"Peaches!" says I. "Those delicious peaches—see how they glow in the sunshine!"
"Oh, nonsense! There is plenty on board," says he; "I'll go and get some."
"Not yet," says E. E.; "the deck is so crowded."
Dempster got seats for us and a stool for himself. The crowd was packed so close that one could hardly breathe. I was thirsty, I was tired out, and just ready to cry. E. E. was tired also, and a little cross. Cecilia was just as she always is—a nuisance. I felt like thanking Dempster when he jumped up, and says he:
"Now for the peaches!"
Away he went, just as good-natured as could be, calling back for me to keep his seat for him. I laid my parasol on it, andkept my hand on that; but a minute after came a great heathen of a fellow and attempted to take the stool.
"It is engaged," says I, pressing down my hand.
"What of that?" says he, jerking the stool away, and throwing my parasol on to the floor. "Every one for himself, and no favors."
I was blue as indigo before that. At another time this creature would have riled me into a tempest, but now I felt more like crying. But there he sat, plump on the stool, looking as self-contented as if butter would not melt in his mouth.
Dempster came back. I looked up longingly. His hands were empty.
"I am very sorry," says he, "but there isn't a peach on board."
Well, there I sat, with the sun pouring down on me, while E. E. read the illustrated papers, and that child made herself generally numerous among the passengers. After awhile I got up to look over the side of the vessel, when that horrid wretch snatched up my seat and carried it off, looking back at me and laughing.
I said nothing—what was the use?—but leaned against the cabin-door, holding my satchel, the most forlorn creature you ever saw. Just then some one spoke to me. I looked round. It was a roly-poly, oldish woman, who spread considerably over her chair, and held a travelling-basket on her lap. She had found an empty stool, and asked me to take it.
I sat down while she smiled blandly upon me.
"Never mind that fellow," says she. "Some men are born animals of one kind or another, so let them go."
Her words were kind—her manner motherly. I liked the woman. She is not elegant, I thought, but who could be with all that breadth of chest and brevity of limb? I smiled and thanked her, wondering who she was.
"Pretty scenery," says she, pointing to the bank on which some cottage-houses, and a wooden tavern with red maroon half-curtains at the window, seemed to set the whole neighborhoodon fire. "Now I would give anything for a house like that. Snug, isn't it?"
She might have been looking at the wooden tavern, or at a cottage close by with a beautiful drapery of vines running along the porch. "Of course," thought I, "she means that."
"Yes," says I, "it looks delightfully quiet."
She nodded, and opened her basket, a capacious affair, quite large enough to hold half a peck of peaches. My mouth began to water. Perhaps—
"Take one," says she, handing over a cracker.
I took the disappointment, and tried to eat, but with that hankering after peaches in my throat it seemed like refreshing one's self on sawdust. She noticed this, I think, and, with a little hesitation, looked into her basket again, then closed it, and, looking towards me, whispered—
"That's dry eating. Come down to the cabin, and I'll give you something nice."
"Something nice!" I felt my eyes brighten. "Something nice—peaches, of course. What else could she have but peaches?" I thanked her with enthusiasm; my eyes gloated on her basket. Peaches and plenty of them—delicious!
The stranger arose, smoothed down her dress, and led the way downstairs. Her presence was imposing, her step firm as a rock. Assuredly my new acquaintance was no common person—a little stout, certainly, but so is the Queen of England.
I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin—on and on—back of some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket on a marble table, and proceeded to open it.
I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice, as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.
"Look a-here," says she. "Isn't this something nice?"
I looked! the basket was open. She held a tumbler in one hand and a bottle in the other, from which a stream of brandy gurgled. That rotund impostor came toward me, beaming.
"There," says she, "take right hold. It's first-rate Cognac."
All the Vermont blood in my veins riled suddenly. I drew myself up to the full queenly height that so many people have thought imposing. Disappointment sharpened virtue's indignation.
"Madam," says I, "you have practised a hospitable fraud—in Christian charity I will call it hospitable—on a New England lady, who looks upon temperance as a cardinal virtue. Put up your bottle. Maple sap and sweet cider from straws are the strongest drinks I ever indulge in."
"Maple sap," says she, with a rumbling, mellow laugh, which ended in a cough as the brandy went down her throat. "Sweet cider, through straws! Well, every one to her taste."
Here she filled the glass again and held it out, smiling like a harvest moon.
"What, you won't take the least nip, just to save it, you know?"
I turned my back upon that rotund tempter, and walked with a stately step to the deck, followed by a rich gurgle from the second glass as it went down that perfidious creature's throat.
"Goodness gracious! What a surprise!"
This was my exclamation when I saw Mr. Burke coming towards me, across the deck, with a small basketful of the most delicious peaches in his hand.
There he came, smiling so blandly, and held out the basket for me to help myself. He was going to Saratoga, he said. The hot season had driven him to seek mountainous air. O sisters!