D
DEAR SISTERS:—New York City is full of epidemical contagions. Horse-racing is one of them. Every spring and fall it rages fearfully, especially among the female women who wait for the races—dress up for the races, and come out with splendiferous spontaneosity, whenever the fast horses are ready to run.
I have been up to see the creatures rush once, and sent you my report, which, owing to verdancy of mind caught from theGreen Mountains, was only skim milk to which I now pour in cream with a liberal hand. To own the truth, it takes more than one visit before a regular New England young lady can understand the inns and outs of a horse-race.
Now, I dare say you think it a sort of agricultural fair for animals—for the horsey kind meant to show off their beauty, try their speed, and encourage farmers to go in for improvement.
Exactly, and a good deal more so. Why, sisters, it's gambling—just gambling, open handed and above board, in which the upper-crust female women of New York take a hand with the men, and glory in it. But I mean to tell you all about it in the regular way, and shall do it as I go along.
You never saw such a crowd of carriages, wagons, buggies, and queer horse machines as crowded along the road when we got within three or four miles of the race-course. When we come to the long bridge that runs across the Harlem River, there were two lines of carriages stretching before and behind us, just as far as we could see, horses that tossed their heads and champed their bits, and shone like satin under harnesses mounted with gold and silver, with little looking-glasses flying in and out over their heads, and hoofs that struck the ground like the feet of a Vermont girl when she dances from the heart.
All these carriages were filled as if they were on the way to a high jubilation, choke full of ladies, with parasols hovering over them like wild birds taking wing, and great clouds of silk, lace gauze, and shiny stuff a-billowing over the sides, till you could but just see the silk cushions they leaned against. Then, again, some were crowded over with gentlemen, mostly in white hats—which delighted me—some with cigars in their mouths—some not—but every one of them just boiling over with good-nature and fun.
This was the way we went. Cousin Dempster has made a good deal of money in Washington—contracting, or something—and he got a spick-span new open carriage for this highoccasion—a carriage made soft as a bird's nest with brown satin cushions, and that glittered outside like a crow's back whenever the sun struck it.
We had a great big fellow, in new plum-colored clothes on the driver's seat, and another genteel youngster by his side—all plum-color and hat-band, like the coachman. Inside, there was Cousin E. E. with a pea-green dress on, all flounces and fringe, and overskirts piled up so high behind that she couldn't lean back, and your missionary, Miss Phœmie Frost, in her pink silk (turned again), and the white hat with plumes of snow, which bespoke at once her good taste and her most sacred political preferences, which would keep going on both sides all I could do.
There, in the front seat, with his back to the horses and his face to us, sat Dempster, looking out with envy and bitter feelings on the men in buggies, that were laughing like fun, and smoking like New England stone chimneys. At such times I do not think that Dempster appreciates all the sweet benefits of female society.
Last and least, I am sorry to say, was that child, Cecilia, with a pink parasol about as big as a good-sized toadstool, fluttering before her face, and all in a storm of flounces above her knees, with nothing but kid boots and silk stockings below.
I do wonder what possesses Dempster and E. E. to train that child along wherever they go! She is just the aggravation of my life.
Well, with our open carriage yeasting over with green, pink, white, and blue, which Dempster broke up with a lean streak of black, we rolled through the gate of the race-grounds and came up, with a magnificent sweep, to the back door of the club house, when E. E. and I gave a neat little jump, and tipped gracefully around the long stoop, right into the upper crust society of New York.
Sisters, it was like wading right into a flower-bed! Everybody there had on her good clothes—I may say, her bettermost clothes of all. Red, green, purple, blue, white, black—everycolor or shade of color to be found in the sky, in flowers, in fruit, or in water, rustled against each other. Sisters, it was gorgeous! But one thing struck me as peculiar—most of these female ladies had the loveliest pink color in their cheeks all the time. While my face was turning red and white, as I grew warm or comfortable, theirs kept one steady pink. Ladies with hair as yellow as gold had ink-black eyebrows and lashes—things we never see together in the country. I don't understand it. Well, we had but just got seats on the largest stoop when the people below us let off a squad of horses that seemed to fly; for the mud was soft as mush on the road, and their hoofs made no more noise than as if they had trod on velvet.
Just before these horses made their first dive, Dempster came up to us with a person who carried a white hat in his hand, and held it out as if he wanted something put into it. I thought that somebody had been cheating the poor fellow, for there was nothing but little, crumpled bits of paper in the hat. Of course I did not want to equal these treacherous people in meanness, so I took out my pocket-book and dropped a five-cent piece into the hat, smiling benignly on the good-looking suppliant as I did it. I really was ashamed of Cousin E. E.; for instead of giving the poor fellow a trifle of money, she just nipped up one of the crumpled bits of paper, and, opening it, called out, laughing like a girl:
"I've drawn the favorite! Oh, isn't that splendid!"
I declare I was mortified by such silly nonsense, and wanting to keep up the credit of the family, dropped another five-cent piece in the hat, and nodded toward E. E., as much as to say: "Never mind; I give it for her."
Instead of thanking me, the man stared and turned a trifle red, as if the gratitude that filled his heart were trying to burst through his face. It was a noble feeling, and I appreciated it by another kind nod and smile.
Then he held out the hat to "that child," and she, too, snatched up one of the papers and began to giggle over it. Ideclare you might have lighted a candle by my face, it burned so.
"Is there no end to such meanness?" thought I, and once more I opened my pocket-book.
"No matter, Phœmie, I'll attend to that," says Cousin Dempster, waving his hand at me.
Out came his pocket-book then, and he took from it a handful of greenback-bills, which he gave to the man, who laughed as if he were half-tickled to death, and well he might be, for Dempster was as extravagant as the female portion of his family had been mean.
"Here is the last number, and our pool is complete," says he, taking a bit of paper from the hat, and dropping it into my lap. "Don't trouble yourself, Phœmie, it's all right."
I did trouble myself, in spite of his smiling face. Charity is one thing, and ostentation is another. After my gift, which I must say was liberal enough, there was no need of such a display as Dempster made. No wonder the man looked pleased as he marched away, with the money in one hand, and that white hat in the other.
When the horses came rushing by again, and made a sharp halt just above the house, the man came up to us choke full of pleasure, and wanted to look at my paper. I thought he was taking liberties, but gave him the mite of paper, and drew back in my seat, in proper fashion.
"Your horse has won," says he; "Mid-day has the race by a length."
With that he laid a roll of bills in my lap, and went away, bowing low, till his white hat almost touched the floor.
"Mercy on me! what does this mean?" says I, a-taking up the money. "Is the man crazy?"
"It means that you have won the pool," said Dempster.
Before I could ask him what on earth he meant, Cousin D. was swept off by a crowd of ladies, and three sandy-haired horses were put upon the run. I could not tell one horse from another, they were so alike; but they all were long and lank,with hind legs that looked as if all their strength lay in that direction to a wonderful extent, and the way they threw them out was surprising.
About this time I saw a great many white hats flying about, and men had pocket-books in their hands, while ladies talked wildly about gloves and neckties, and clapped their hands when the horses rushed by, and the word "pool" was in everybody's mouth—in fact, it was Bedlam let loose.
S
SISTERS:—This horse hurdling is something that just lifts you right off your feet. All that I had seen was nothing to what was to come. All along the winding road, and the lots each side, some men went to building fences, till every few yards were fenced in, and yet seven long-legged, long-bodied, and not over fleshy horses, with riders in white, in blue, in yellow, and striped brown and yellow, were ready for another start, which they made like a thunderburst.
On they came, flying and flashing through the lots, like a flock of birds, right up to the first fence. I sprang up—everybody sprang up, wild and anxious—I expected to see the whole grist of them pitch head-foremost against the rails, when up they all rose, and away they went straight over, and off like a shot to the next and the next, clearing one after another, before you could draw a deep breath. Across lots, down the road, in and out they went, jumping fences, now abreast, now in a swift line, till they came up all at once to a pond of water.
I screamed right out, and felt myself growing cold, for they were rushing toward it full split, and it was wider across than the mill-stream back of our school-house.
"Stop 'em, stop 'em! They'll be drowned, they'll be killed!" I screamed out, just crazy with fear.
No one minded me; the whole crowd was too busy watching those wild riders to mind me if I had yelled like an engine whistle. They came rushing up nearer—nearer, almost in a line, as if some enemy were ahead, and the whole squad meant to ride right through and trample everything down. They were close by the water now, with a low fence that side. On they rushed—a whole cloud of hoofs ploughed up through the air, and those seven horses went shooting like sparrows over the fence and across the water. Their hoofs struck fire from the stone wall on the other side, and away they went, pell-mell, their riders shooting out colors like a broken rainbow, and the crowd cheering them on as if it had been a sham fight on training-day.
On they flew like a young whirlwind, though one bay horse they called "Blind Tom" fell short. The rider, trying to bring him up, was pitched over his head, at which the crowd was hushed, but burst out again when Blind Tom left the poor fellow behind, and dashed on with the other horses neck and neck round the fields, leaping a fence or two, before the poor stunned rider could roll over and pick himself up.
Oh, it was too droll—that plucky horse, dashing along with the rest, shooting over the fences, up to time, and acting like a soldier charging under command. I could just have gone down and kissed the splendid creature, and the whole crowd—thousands and thousands—set up shout after shout that you could have heard almost on the Green Mountains.
Another horse came out first best on the second round, but a couple of men, right behind me, insisted that Blind Tom ought to have the money—what money I didn't understand—but I agreed with the men, if there was anything that a horse could accept, Blind Tom was the animal for the money.
Sisters, there don't seem much that is wrong about this. You can't see any amount of deep iniquity in it, can you now?I didn't discover anything poisonous to the moral character; but then we female women don't always see deep enough into great social and religious questions, and horse-racing is one.
What do you think the gloves and neckties meant? What hidden sin lay buried under the pools? What, after all, took that great multitude up to that beautiful hollow among the hills? Gambling, my dear; male and female gambling, nothing more, nothing less. The horses run for money. The jockeys ride for money. The men bet money, hats, gloves, hundreds, thousands, on this horse and that. Everybody gambles, and everybody likes it.
Sisters, that poor man's hat was a pool; there wasn't a drop of water in it; still it was a pool. The two five-cent pieces I threw into it were a dead loss to charity. The scraps of crumpled paper meant dollars. The heap of bills that I tucked away in my pocket-book, innocent as twenty lambs, was money that I had won gambling, ignorantly, innocently.
With Christianity at my heart, and gambling money in my pocket, I feel demoralized as a church member; yet I must confess it exhilated me as if I had been on the top of a high mountain, and was looking down with delicious dizziness. I a gambler, I a diver into pools no larger than a man's hat, but dangerous as the bottomless pit! I cannot realize it; and when realized, it seems to me as if I couldn't be properly penitent. That sort of thing doesn't seem so awful to me as it did before I got into it, in this pleasant, innocent, and sweetly promiscuous manner.
Is this "rolling sin like a sweet morsel under the tongue"? Am I getting faithless to the trust with which I set forth on this city mission?
This much I will say in my own behalf: horse-racing, if pernicious, is awfully pleasant, and horse-betting (gloves and neckties I mean) is—well—ditto.
Sucha ride home as we had! Trees and grass, cool and green—no dust. The sun going down, and throwing red shadows across the fields. Carriages crowded full of smiling people, horses wild to pass each other and get home; yourselfdeliciously tired, with half a dozen swift horses chasing each other through your brain, and trampling down your conscience.
Well, sisters, I may have been wrong, but frankness is my peculiarity, and I should like to try it all over again, just once. Don't think hard of it, but I should.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—With an aching head and bitter taste in my mouth, I take up my pen to write. Myself, and not myself, I sit here as if I had just come out of the upheaving of an earthquake. If I write anything of what happened yesterday, it must be sensational; for, of all sensations that ever riled up a human constitution, that I felt while out to sea beat all that I ever knew or heard of.
I have been out to a yacht race.
Horse-racing is a science not unknown, in its rudiments, to our rural population. You can remember when we took our first lessons, bareback, with a rope-halter looped around the horse's nose for a bridle. No—that was our second lesson; the first was on father's old grey horse, which was blind of one eye, and had a natural saddle curved into his back. Being a mite of a child, I sat in that hollow like a bird in its nest, hung on to the mane with one hand, and held a crooked stick before the eye that could see when I wanted the creature to turn. In this way I began my horse-alphabet. First, we waded through the plantains and burdocks, at a slow walk, with a stumble now and then, which set my little heart to quaking like a swampy bog trod upon. Then I grew venturesome, and the old grey warmed into a soft trot, which shook me up likeanything, but was more exhilarating than the walk. With my bare feet pressed close to the animal's side and my fingers gripped into his mane, I began to rattle my stick timidly against his shoulder; at which he broke trot and racked himself off into a canter, which made my heart leap with every fall of his hoofs, and filled it with the courage of a trooper.
Didn't we wade through the burdocks and sweet ferns then! Didn't we ride round and round that pasture lot, without giving the dear old beast time for a bite of grass or a fair nip at the sweet ferns! Didn't my crooked stick rattle and my hair fly out in the wind! Didn't my mother scream after me, and my father rush out like a crazy man, with both arms spread out, and try to head Old Grey off! Of course he did. But the dear old horse didn't want to give up, and I didn't mean that he should; so he shied, and, of course, having nothing to hold him in by but the tuft of hair and the stick, he left father behind, and, I do believe, kicked up a trifle, just to show his independence.
That was my first lesson on horseback. On the second, my father insisted on haltering the creature, which gave me a pull at his head, and mane, too, which rather interfered with the use of my crooked stick, and bunched me up, till father called out to me to sit up straight—which I did, at last, going it with both hands on the halter, and the hair blowing about my face like a veil. That morning Old Grey and I jumped a brook a full yard wide, and cleared both banks beautifully.
After that I did a great deal of bareback riding, along the road and in the pasture lots, and could sit and ride like a trooper before I ever got into a side-saddle or knew what a curb-bit was.
Sisters, that is the way to learn things—begin at the beginning, and get a firm, steady seat before you attempt to cut a dash. The lady that can't sit her horse handsomely without regard to bit or stirrup, needn't set herself up as much of a rider—at any rate, in our part of the country.
So much for one kind of racing. Now for the water-course.
We used to send little boats, dug out with a jack-knife, under paper sails, down that brook by the school-house, and see them swamped among the cowslips or capsized in the eddies, when we were in the A B C class. Some of us went far enough to sail down the mill stream in a canoe dug out of the trunk of some big tree. In fact, I have a remembrance of crossing a large river in a scow pushed forward with awful long poles. But beyond these rudimental experiences, ship-rowing is not indigenous to the Green Mountains, as a general thing, and I do not see how it can ever become a Vermont institution, yet awhile. Therefore I say, horse-racing you can understand, but ship-racing is really a novelty in the Mountains.
Now, a yacht, sisters, is nothing more or less than a baby schooner, which has two masts, or a sloop, that has one, built up slender and graceful, with a cock-pit, which is in the stern, and a cooking-room, which is in the bow, and all the other fixings which make it as much like a ship as a first-rate baby-house is like an old homestead.
Dempster has been to Washington, and got some contracts or something, and what does he do but come home one hot day when we were all just sweltering in white loose gowns, and says he:
"Girls, what do you say to going down to the Regatta?"
"The Regatta," says I, "what is that—anything cool?"
"Why, it is a race given by the Yacht Club," says he, "and of course it will be cool if we go out to sea."
"Well, I don't object to seeing, if that will make things cool," says I; "but how a club can race, except when it is in a policeman's hand, I can't begin to make out."
Cousin D. gave one of his long, hearty laughs, and says he:
"Now, really, Phœmie, don't you understand what a club is?"
I felt the blood rise up into my face.
"Don't I know what a club is?" says I. "Well, I should rather think so. There are hickory clubs, oak clubs, yellowpine knots, that answer pretty well, and locust clubs, but how a little ship can be turned into a club beats me!"
"Oh, it isn't one ship that makes the club, but a good many," says he, "crack ships, too."
I just dropped the two hands I had been holding up, quite out of breath.
"So a good many ships make one club, do they?" says I.
"Just so," says he. "When a lot of men join together for any particular thing, it is called a 'club.' There is the Jockey Club, the Union Club, the Rural Club, the Union League Club, the Yacht Club."
"Oh, for mercy's sake, do stop before you club me to death," says I, clapping both hands to my ears. "We have got timber enough in Vermont, but clubs of any kind are not in our line. Just tell me what you want of us, and we'll say Yes or No."
"Well, I want you to get into my new yacht, and go a little way out to sea," says he.
"To see what?" says I.
"The Regatta."
"Can't you for once speak honest English?" says I.
"Well, a Yacht Race," says he.
"That is, little ships running races," says I; "but where?"
"On the Atlantic Ocean," says he.
My spirit rose. I have seen the East River and the upper bay, and more than once have caught a view of the Long Island Sound from the car-windows, but a live ocean—a great, broad, heaving ocean, with waves roaring up thirty feet high, is an object we do not often get a chance to contemplate on the slopes of the Green Mountains. Would I go and see that? Wouldn't I?"
"Then you will go?" says Cousin Dempster.
"Go!" says I, "yes, if I have to walk afoot with snow-shoes on."
"Well, then, get your yachting clothes ready," says he.
"Pink silk?" I suggested.
"Oh, no; something that can stand the water," says he.
"Say black alpaca, with a white hat and plumes—principle and patriotism before anything else," says I.
"That will be lovely on the blue waves," says Cousin E. E. "I will wear a blue feather, and Cecilia shall turn up her Leghorn flat with an anchor."
"That's just the thing," says Cousin D., with maritime enthusiasm. "I have had the yacht painted white, and on her long white pennant you will find a name all Vermonters love particularly, and the world generally."
"What is her name?" we all said right out at once.
"The Vermonter," says he, straightening himself up proudly.
We all sprang to out feet, and clapped our hands with the wildest enthusiasm.
"I'm not afraid to dare the wildest storms on the ocean with that craft," says I.
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
Sisters, it was a spontaneous outburst of pure state patriotism—even that child Cecilia seemed to feel it—for ten minutes after she was busy as a bee, sewing a silver anchor on her Leghorn flat, and that day, for the first time, I kissed the child with spontaneosity.
S
SISTERS:—When you go to a yacht-race, the first step is peculiar. You get into a carriage or a car, and ride down to the docks. Then you steam off in a ferry-boat to Staten Island, get into a thing they call a yawl, which floats like a cockle-shell, and carries two or three people,and row off to one of the cunningest, prettiest, slenderest, most scrumptious little ships you ever set eyes on, sitting on the water like a white duck with its wings spread.
Some black-walnut steps fell down the side, over which I climbed, with my heart in my mouth, and jumped into a little pew, with a sofa running round it, and some light cross-legged chairs ready for visitors.
The sun was hot overhead and up from the water, so I just went down into the prettiest little cabin you ever saw, all finished off with shiny wood, like a lady's bedroom, and carpeted with sky-blue, with a pale touch of gray in it. Right by this were two lovely little bedrooms, all blue and cloud color, with snow-white beds and cloudy curtains. There were four beds in the cabin, too, built into the wall, and lots of silver things were shining on brackets and silver hooks.
A sofa, all cushioned with blue, ran down each side of the cabin, and on one of these I took my place while the rest came in.
Cousin D. had invited a dozen people to try his new yacht, and when they all came swarming in, it was cheerful as a beehive.
Some cramped themselves in the cockpit, some flung themselves on the long sofas of the cabin, some got under the sails, cosey as birds in a tree, two and two; but I always remarked that two men and two women somehow never got together; they were sure to split up one of each sort, just as they are apt to do on land.
Well, the yacht spread her sails, made a graceful dive and off she went, her canvas snapping and her colors flying. A whole squad of other vessels set sail too, and off we went like a flock of birds.
The water of the bay was blazing like quicksilver. Some white clouds cooled the sky a little, but everything around was sweltering with hotness. On we went, fleet and cheerful, sending up the water in sparkles, and flying toward the ocean, with green banks on each side of us, and that gloriously hot sun heating up the air like a furnace.
By and by we passed a couple of great stone forts, and came out into the ocean. Oh, what a broad blaze of sky and water—blue and silver everywhere, blue and silver!
On these waters, far out, lay a crimson ship, settled down like a mammoth red bird, and around that a crowd of little vessels, with their sails spread ready for flight. Ever so many steamboats, crowded with people, waited a little way off for the race to begin.
One of these steamboats had the President of these United States on board, and hung out its flag that all the world might know where to find him. We didn't try, but kept modestly down among the small craft.
By and by there was a fluttering among the yachts around the red ship; then a gun banged off, then another, and away the whole flock went, flying across the water in a white cloud.
After it went the steamboats, ploughing and snorting through the water, and after them a whole storm of sailing craft, all on the wing, each dashing up foam like fury.
Now the wind rose higher, and seemed to cool the air, while it spread out all the sails as they flew before it. This seemed to bring in a whole army of little waves from the great ocean, and, as true as you live, every wave had a white hat on.
I jumped up and fairly clapped my hands when I saw these waves trooping in, battalion after battalion, all tossing up their white hats and dancing forward, as if the winds were singing Yankee Doodle behind them.
Then the party in our yacht gave a shout.
"They are rounding the spit," says Cousin D. "Do look, Phœmie."
I did look, but saw nothing particular—who could? What would one spit be in a whole ocean of water.
Then came another shout.
"They have marked the boy."
"Goodness, gracious," says I, "is there a boy overboard? Do fling out a boat-hook or something!"
"Do not disturb yourself, Phœmie," said Cousin D.; "that particular boy has been swimming in one spot these ten years."
"And alive yet?" says I, feeling my eyes widen like saucers.
"Just as live as he ever was," says he.
"You don't say so," says I. "Can we see him from here?"
"Yes; yonder!"
Cousin D. pointed toward something in the water, black, with a red cap on. There did not seem to be much danger of his sinking, for he kept his head high, and a good many boats were near enough to keep him up. I lost sight of him, and watched the vessels flying off again. But somehow, when they came in sight once more, my enthusiasm was all gone, and I began to feel limp and dreadfully discouraged. I haven't had such an uproar about my—well—heart, since the Grand Duke sailed, and that was very different, a sort of affectionate flutter, while this is beyond ex-pres-sion.
Sisters, at the end of the last sentence, my head fell into one of those blue cushions, and I have a dreamy feeling that waves with white hats on were bowing to me right and left.
I have lifted my head again. The yachts are coming in full split. As each comes up, the steamboats and vessels give a yell that makes the sea tremble, and scares all the birds in the neighborhood. One time they shriek—that is for theGracie. Then there was a deep, long howl—that was for theJantha. Then there was a yell, a shriek, and a howl, all together, which was for theVixen.
What yacht beat, I don't pretend to know, but it comes to me as if in a hideous dream that it was theVixen.
The next thing I have on my mind was, a table set out in the cabin, and the popping of corks from long bottles, with a sound that made me quiver all over. Then I recollect that some one was persecuting me with offers of something nice to eat, for which I shall loath them as long as I live.
Sisters, I didnotsee a single ocean wave thirty feet high—far from it—but those I did see were quite high enough. If you don't believe me, go to a yacht race, that's all.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—I love music. My soul was brought up on Old Hundred, and refreshed from time to time with Yankee Doodle. The lively tones of a fiddle drove me wild with delight, in my foolish, school-girl days; and I cannot keep my feet still when one rattles of money-musk or the Opera Reel even now, when enthusiasm is delicately toned down into graceful ease.
The truth is, Nature is full of music, and we who live in a mountainous country know how much of it is to be found outside of instruments and the human voice. In fact, the sweetest music I ever heard has come to me through the woods—not from the birds, but the whispering leaves. Have you ever listened—with your heart—and learned, by the faintest sound, the different voices of the trees—the quick, soft rustle of the maple; the stronger sound of the oak-leaves; the weird, ghostly shiver of the pine-needles? I know little of music, if anything out of heaven can touch a human soul more tenderly than these sounds. Then the birds—what joyous or solemn music they can make! Have you never felt your heart leap to the singing of a robin among the branches of an apple-tree in full blossom, or shiver and grow sad at sunset, when the cry of a lonely whip-poor-will comes wailing through the dusk?
There is the music of trees in the spring, when their blossoms are sweet and their leaves are just unfolding—soft, cheerful, happy music, full of tenderness and love. Then there isthe low, drowsy music of the summer-time, when bumble-bees and lady-bugs and humming-birds fill the warm air with greedy droning as they plunder the wild flowers of honey.
Did you never close your eyes, half go to sleep, and listen to them, with a lazy consciousness that you could rest and enjoy, while those little, busy creatures were singing at their work? I have, a thousand times.
Then comes the fall, when the hills are burnt over with red and gold and brown. How the full, rough-edged leaves strike together, with a sound of copper and brass—with a rustle and shiver that makes one think of military funerals. Then comes the swift, rustling sound of ripe nuts rattling from burs and husks; the coarse, bass voices of the crows among the naked stubble-lots; the mellow crash of corn-stalks, as the cattle tread them; the slow, liquid grinding of cider-mills, and the sharp sound of the hackle, where flax is broken for the spinning-wheel.
After this, comes stormy music—fierce, high winds, whistling sharp and shrill through the long, naked branches of the woods, which answer them back with moans and sighs and wild shrieks that make you shiver at night and hide yourself under the bed-clothes.
When I was a little girl, sisters, my heart rose and fell to music like this till I suffered terribly, sometimes, without speaking a word to any one—for these are feelings which one never does talk of—there is no language that I ever learned which will express them. But I have never heard any music that could reach my soul like that which God gives us in the blossom season—the summer, the fall of late fruit—and the bleak, hard winter, when the clash of ice against ice has a sound that no man or woman can reach.
This is my idea of music, and that is scattered far and given to all men alike. You can't gather it up and deal it out in great, thundering gushes. It isn't to be got for five dollars a ticket. In fact, the best and sweetest things we have are given to the poor and rich just alike—free, gratis, for nothing.
S
SISTERS:—The music I have just been writing about is not fashionable by any manner of means. Boston, the great central hub of all creation, can't bottle it up or engage it by the ton to astonish all creation with. She must have the manufactured article, and has sent all over the world to get it.
Every fiddler, flute-player, drummer, and curlecued horn-man in Europe has been brought over here to thunder-out and roll-off billows of sound for people to pay for and wonder at.
We have a Niagara of waters that astonishes the world. Now the people of Boston are determined to give us, in a great, wild, conglomeration of voices, a full Niagara of sound.
I am New England all over, from the top of my beehive-bonnet to the sole of my gaiter, but—confidentially, among ourselves—don't you think Boston takes a little too much on herself? That narrow-streeted, up-hilly city isn't all six of the New England States by a long shot.
My opinion is that Boston is putting on airs, and I for one don't mean to put up with it. I hate stuck-up people, and I despise stuck-up towns.
Of course it is my duty to see all things in behalf of the Society, and to do my best to lay them before you. I cannot say that my ideas of Boston have not toned down considerably since I came to New York. Still New England is New England, and Boston is Boston, if she does now and then make a tremendous old goose of herself, and sometimes threatens to cackle the hub all to pieces.
Cousin Dempster hasn't much to do in summer-time, so he was on hand for the Great High Jubilee; and E. E. was just crazy to go; for she is what you call musical, and goes right off the handle whenever a fellow that can't speak English playson the piano or sings to her in some language that she don't know a word of.
Well, we went, and found Boston just running over with people. Every house along the crooked streets had one or two flags a-streaming from the roof, or out of the windows—star-spangled banners tangled-up with red and yellow and all sorts of colors; some with eagles, some without, but making every street gorgeous, as if the Fourth of July had burst out before its time.
The Coliseum is a tremendous building, big enough to roof-in forty thousand people, and leave room for the whole swarm of drummers, toot-horners, piano-thrashers, blacksmiths, anvils, and swivel-guns, with a thousand people to blow, thrash, and blast them off, and twenty thousand singers behind, ready to pile in the thunder of their voices.
The Coliseum is grand, barny in its structure, and all outdoorish when you get into it; but there is a good deal to see before you do get into it. The streets were just jammed-up with people when we came in sight of the great building, which stands out in a bare piece of ground, without a tree near it, and the hottest sun you ever wilted under beating down on everything around it, till I felt as if approaching the mouth of a great New England brisk oven, heated to bake a thousand tons of beans in. The streets were blocked with people.
The little wooden bridges built over the railroads were creaking under the tramp of a never-ending crowd. The street cars were crowded like beehives till the horses could not move, and some of the cars broke down, choking up the track.
Female women, with red books in their hands, scrambled through the crowd. Little tents and shanties were scattered all about, everybody talked fast and loud—some in one language, some in another. It was like going into the Tower of Babel, with all the languages in full blast.
From one of the shanties we heard the sound of a loud, eager, wild voice, as of some fellow going to be hung, and wrestling for his life.
"What is that?" says I to Dempster. "What on earth are they doing in there?"
"Oh, it's a prayer-meeting," says he; "some man is wrestling with the Lord in behalf of sinful souls."
"Oh, that's it," says I, just disgusted: "Well, I hope he'll get through with his wrestling before we come this way again. To haul religion and force prayers into such a crowd as this, is making a farce of Christianity. We have churches for such things, and the calm of a holy Sabbath set aside for the service of God. Who has time to think of such things here?"
"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child a-dragging after us.
We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.
W
WELL, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.
It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of them—benches, benches, benches—crowded down and running over with people, all in a state of bewildering commotion—humming, whispering, and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.
You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of it, thousands and thousands with crimsonbooks fluttering in their hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the singers—almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books in motion.
Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling, and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.
Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down, scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a grand sight, I must say that—grand, but hubby.
It was the German day, Cousin Dempster said. England had had her turn, France had flared up, and now Germany was to splurge just as much as she was a mind to.
Well, Germany did splurge, but she began with a loud, deep, woe-begone rush of music, that seemed to roll out from a graveyard where everybody lay uneasy in his grave and was begging to get out. This ended off when the day closed with a dreary, low complaint, as if they had begged long enough and gave up. Now and then they broke in with a grand crash that made me start from my seat, and went off in a low wail, with a storm of music between.
Something lively followed the first moan. Then a lady got up and sang all alone by herself, and her voice went floating through that great barny place, full, loud, and clear, as if ten thousand nightingales—not that I ever saw or heard a nightingale in my life, but I persist in it—as if ten thousand nightingales had broken loose in a swamp of wild roses.
"Who on earth is that?" says I to E. E.
"Madame Puschka Leutner," says she, clasping her hands. "Isn't she delicious?"
Then out E. E. drew her handkerchief and set it flying.
"I never heard anything like it, so strong, so sweet, so spreading," says I, flirting out my own handkerchief with enthusiasm. "The human voice is something worth while in the way of music after all."
It was no use saying more, for up jumped all the thousands of people in that great encampment, out went a swarm of white handkerchiefs, flocking together like a host of frightened seagulls, and the roar of the people went up like thunder.
Then a great band of men, mostly with yellow beards and rosy faces, got on their feet, and went at the fiddles, the twisted horns, the drums and things, like crazy creatures, and the way the music rose, and swelled, and thundered out was enough to drive one crazy.
Once more that great crowd burst in with yells and shouts, and a wild storm of praise. Then one of the yellow-haired men stood up alone with a wide-mouthed toot-horn, made of bright brass, in his hand. After looking around a minute, he just put the horn to his mouth, and blew a slow, long blow. Then he went at it tooth and nail, bringing out great round tones that seemed as if they never would grow faint or die away.
I have heard a great many toot-horns in my life; in fact, I have blown a tin one myself to call the men folks in to dinner; but never did I hear anything like that. It was what Cousin E. E. called wonderful—so-low.
I couldn't quite agree with her there, for to me it seemed wonderfully loud and riotous, but it was enough to make one in love with brass toot-horns forever.
By and by something happened that just took the starch out of my New England soul. There, in the midst of all those dashy singers, one hundred and fifty men and women of the colored persuasion rose up in a human thunder-cloud, and broke into that noble song of freedom, which is a glory to oneNew England woman, and a glory to New England, for no better thing has been written since the "Star Spangled Banner:"