"The question is too hard for me to answer; but ask thepoor, those who in any way solicit from us a favor, and they will tell you that the most beautiful hand in the world is the hand thatgives."
I could have discovered beauty even in that of our neighbor, coarse and soiled as it was, had it been open and generous. But the nerves by whose agency the human hand is opened freely or as tightly closed must have their source in the human heart. If there be sympathy for others there, a politeness of the heart, the kindly impulses thus living and moving within it will vibrate through every cord of one's being, and, struggling for outward expression, will manifest their presence by the warm grasp of the hand, the cordial smile, the gently modulated voice, the unflagging effort to promote the happiness of all around. I had not asked a gift; it was the jealous indisposition to oblige that so grieved and confounded me.
I had always supposed that horticulture was one of the ennobling arts,—that it enlarged the affections and refined the manners of all who pursued it, even when they did so as a matter of pecuniary gain. Here was evidence that in one instance I was mistaken. But it was the single exception to what may be regarded as the general rule; for in other cases I have found humble cultivators of both fruit and flowers, to whose genial hearts all selfish unwillingness to communicate a knowledge of the art, or to supply me with plants, was a total stranger. There are thousands of pioneers such as I was. It is well for them that the light they need is not hidden under the bushel of any one churlish individual. But there were ample expedients remaining, and it required more than one discouragement to divert me from the object we were seeking to accomplish.
There stands in the centre of Second Street, in Philadelphia, a market-house extending two squares below PineStreet, long famous for its overflowing supplies of fruits and vegetables. In passing through it on my daily walk to the factory, I now remembered having seen abundance of strawberries on the various stands; but, having at that time no special interest in the subject, I had only noticed the beauty of their crimson pyramids, the abundant supply, and the throngs of buyers that gathered round them. I took no thought of price, nor of where or how they were produced, as that branch of horticulture had never engaged my attention. But now the case was different. I remembered that most of these stands had been attended by women, and that one in particular had been famous for the quantity of its daily supply of fruit, as well as for the crowd of customers that collected about it.
I lost no time in calling on the occupant. Though the strawberries had long since disappeared, yet she sat surrounded with a profusion of vegetables,—one kind succeeding another as the seasons changed. In all the public markets of Philadelphia, this business of retailing what is popularly known as "truck" has become an inheritance of the poor women ever abounding in a great city. It is a hard and exacting business. Whether well or ill, the earliest daybreak finds them at their posts. There they stand or sit until the evening shadows begin to lengthen. Through all weathers they observe the same compulsory routine. No morning rain is too drenching, no snow too blinding, no cold too bitter, to keep from their stands these heroic toilers for a bare subsistence. Multitudes of them are mothers of families, whom they are thus obliged to leave half-uncared-for at home. Many are poor widows, burdened also with the care of children. Every other avenue to employment being closed, they are forced into this public exposure of the open air, in many cases with a mere shed to shelter them from the inclement weather. But while thus dispensing food to others, they earn it honestly for themselves. They live, and sometimes accumulate money. The shrewd managing ones have been known to become independent. Some of them begin upon a capital of a few dollars wherewith to furnish their stands, but not succeeding, they retire from the crowd and drop out of sight. Talent is necessary even for the sale of truck: not possessing it, they are driven to some employment of a humbler description. These women are not producers of the fruits and vegetables they have to sell. Most of these are grown by truckers in the suburbs, who supply the market-stands with a daily assortment during the season. But the business of thus trafficking in the open thoroughfare is a hard one for females. Custom has reconciled the public eye to it, but necessity alone has made it tolerable for women.
When I called at the strawberry-stand referred to, and entered into conversation with the occupant, I at once discovered that I was conversing with one infinitely above the situation she was filling. Indeed, if courteousness, gentleness, and the manifestation of a sincere desire to gratify the wishes of another are to be considered as characteristic of a lady, this woman was one. I did not notice how she dressed, but only how pleasantly she spoke. I know it will be deemed evidence of extreme simplicity in me to intimate the possibility of a lady being found among the occupants of a public market. I know that before one can be considered lady-like, in the common acceptation of the term, she must be shown to be perfectly useless. By this rule she must be devoid of everything that may entitle her to the love and protection which she claims of right, before she can receive either. It is fashionable with some ladies to be invalids and helpless, and some are nursed and coddled up because they take on accomplishments of this description. Of course no one will expect me to know how the domestic arrangements of Adam and Eve were conducted. But I may presume that Adam's dinners were prepared with as much gastronomic skill as had up tothat time been attained, and that if Eve had set up to be a fashionable invalid, wholly dependent on Adam, and not a help-meet, there would have been a domestic mutiny even in the Garden of Eden. Our primal mother could not have been less pleasing because she happened to be a capital cook. Thus the truly gentle heart will lose nothing of its native gentleness, though forced by misfortune into a humbler station. Such must have been the character of the woman I was addressing. There was something in her voice, moreover, that struck me as a familiar sound, and, long before our conversation had ended, I recognized her as the widow whom, years ago, I had seen made the victim of a heartless imposition at the counter of a slop-shop. She had gone through trial after trial, and now, lady though she certainly was, there she stood at a fruit-stand in the public market.
There was no difficulty in obtaining plants through her. Like some others in the market, she sold many things on commission, among which were strawberry-plants for the trucker who supplied her with fruit. I engaged all I should need for an acre of ground, not then knowing how many would be wanted. Then I went into a long course of inquiry touching the business of raising and selling strawberries, but more particularly in relation to the latter. When I suggested the possibility of not finding a market, she broke out into loud merriment.
"Bring them to me, Miss," she cried. "I can sell all that you will be able to produce. I have never yet had a full supply for my customers. This market has never within my experience had too many strawberries, and I have been here three years."
She gave me abundant information concerning the whole business of selling, which at that time I regarded as the most important, having, notwithstanding my new-born enthusiasm, felt considerable doubt as to whether we could dispose of our crop. But here, according to her account, the sale was sure. Then she went into quite a long explanation of how the fruit was to be made ready for market, just as if I had already produced it, telling me that the berries must be selected when they were picked, the large and fine ones being kept separate from the smaller ones. She said it would be tedious and troublesome, but it gave a good return, as there were those among her customers who would pay any price for fine berries. I observed, that it was probably the wealthy ones who thus insisted on having the best. But she replied, it was not always so; there were quite poor people who would buy nothing but the very best in the market; though even the smallest had the genuine strawberry-flavor, yet persons who really could not afford it did not hesitate to take the largest, at the highest price: the appearance, not the flavor of the fruit, seemed to regulate this. She remarked, that the extravagance of some families in thus indulging themselves was to her very surprising. But among the several classes of consumers all kinds were readily disposed of, the result being that she never had an overstock,—and there need be no apprehension on my part, therefore, of not finding a market, and at good prices, for all I could raise, no matter what the times might be. She had long since learned, that, the more people there were who got a taste of good fruit, the more freely they would consume it. Her great regret was that the strawberry-season did not extend over the whole year. On my suggesting, that, if such a thing could be brought about, there would be danger of the public becoming tired of them,—
"What!" she exclaimed, with animation, "tired of strawberries? Don't distress yourself too soon. Strawberries are a thing of which the public have never yet had a surfeit."
All this was exceedingly encouraging to me, and I made a full report at home of what I had thus learned. I was rejoiced at being able to carry out my plan in spite of our ill-natured neighbors. Besides this, the conversation referred to showed us that their pretence of my wanting to ruin their business by raising strawberries was only a piece ofmean and unreasonable jealousy,—that there was no real likelihood of such an event occurring, inasmuch as the demand was apparently unlimited. It is very probable, however, that it was from pure ill-temper that they refused to sell me any plants, an unwillingness to see us do well, not from any apprehension of an overstocking of the market; as long experience must have taught them, equally with the market-woman, that that was a comparative impossibility.
There were various impediments to be overcome, even after ascertaining that we were sure of selling all we could produce. Those who are experienced in horticulture will smile at my simplicity and ignorance, and wonder how so many difficulties beset me. But even they must have had some sort of probation, which they overlook when reading this history of mine. We are all, at some period, mere beginners in everything. There were hundreds of visitors to our neighbor's garden who had never seen a strawberry-plant until then. When mine were fairly started, I witnessed the same display of ignorance in others who came to visit us. Some ladies, occasionally gentlemen even, supposed the vines ran up trees, and that the fruit was gathered like cherries. It is possible that this may be read by some gentle spirit, some anxious inquirer after a brighter pathway through a checkered life, some one of my own sex whose aspirations may be in harmony with mine, and whose fortunes may have been infinitely more unpropitious, in the hope of gathering from my humble experience sufficient light to guide her in a similar undertaking. I doubt not there are thousands in our country whose tastes would lead them in the same direction, did opportunity offer, and were the requisite knowledge at hand. I therefore record all the trials that impeded my progress. When difficulties are known beforehand, they may often be avoided.
I was unwilling to lose a day from the factory by walking several miles into the country to visit the man who supplied my friendly market-woman with strawberries, and from whom the plants were to come. But while waiting for him to bring them in, together with the information I desired as to how and when to plant them, an incident occurred which gave me a complete knowledge of the whole theory of strawberry-culture. I had gone with my mother, one Saturday evening, to a neighboring grocery for certain articles we needed; and while standing at the counter, awaiting our turn to be served, a boy came in with a large bundle of old newspapers for sale as wrappers, placing it on the counter directly beside me. Casting my eye upon it, I noticed that the outside paper bore the title of "The New England Farmer." I then examined the bundle, untied it, and found that there were many numbers of the same journal, and underneath these a collection of "The Country Gentleman." I had never seen an agricultural paper before, though our little penny daily did occasionally contain extracts from some of them. I became immediately interested. The thought struck me that this bundle of old papers, now about to be used for such ignoble purposes as wrappers for groceries, must contain stores of the very information I was so laboriously seeking after. Hastily turning them over, my eye lighted on an article headed "Strawberries: how to plant and how to cultivate them." I was fairly dipping into it, when my mother, giving me a nudge, told me she was ready to go. But it was far otherwise with me, and I began bargaining with the boy for his bundle. That matter was soon concluded, as the grocer declined buying; so I took them at a few cents a pound. They came to nearly a dollar, but I had my week's wages in my pocket, and am certain that I never made an investment so cheerfully, nor any, considering the amount, that was half so useful to me as this. Buying knowledge by the pound was quite a new idea with me.
I lugged the bundle home myself, and went into an examination of its contents with the utmost enthusiasm. Indeed, the whole family shared it with me, so that we were up till nearly midnight engagedin looking after articles treating of the subject then uppermost in our minds. The various numbers contained the collected experience of probably fifty different cultivators of the strawberry, with a mass of information on all matters pertaining to fruits and flowers. It took us a whole week to obtain any tolerable idea of the contents, as our evenings only could be spared for reading. The variety of experiences related was rather confusing,—one writer telling how he had failed altogether, though pursuing the very system under which another had had great success. There were all kinds of theories, and probably all kinds of practice. One grower declared that the ground must be made extremely rich, while another asserted positively that strawberries grew better and bore more abundantly on the poorest soil. One gentleman averred that the only profitable plan was to raise the plants in distinct hills, keeping them clear of runners; some one in the next paper denied this, and vowed that he made more money by crowding his ground with all the plants that could find room upon it to take root. I remember one correspondent who said that letting the weeds grow would kill the strawberries; but there was some one else who assured the editor, that, in his opinion, the strawberries rather liked the weeds, because they shaded the ground.
How was it possible for me to discriminate between these contradictory statements,—all made, moreover, by gentlemen who wrote as if each were in himself a complete horticultural encyclopædia? Though utterly confused by them, and quite at a loss to know which plan of cultivation to adopt, yet one fact seemed very prominent, and that was that any person who was at all careful in keeping his ground mellow and reasonably clear of weeds would be sure to have good crops.
What struck me as a little remarkable in this voluminous record of experience and opinion was the circumstance of there being very few female writers on the subject. There were many who wrote quite eloquently on the culture of flowers, but only two or three who appeared to have cultivated strawberries. Yet there were several accounts of wonderful coverlets which some of them had made, containing many thousands of pieces, with probably one or two millions of stitches. I could not help concluding that this latter feat was only labor thrown away, and that elderly ladies who undertake to produce counterpanes and bedspreads with so much superfluous work upon them should be provided with a sewing-machine. It was not very encouraging to observe that so small a share of female attention had been directed to the strawberry-culture. The only recorded efforts of this kind had been made in gardens, where the beds, after being planted, were attended to by the women of the family. It appeared that they could readily keep everything in order, pull out the weeds, gather the fruit; and though the fact was not mentioned, yet I presume they were able to put in a full oar when it came upon the table. One or two cases were related of young girls having made quite a handsome sum from a small garden-bed. But the general testimony went to prove that strawberry-growing was so simple an art that any woman who had sufficient good sense to keep herself tidy could successfully practise it, more especially if she had a taste for horticultural occupations. I concluded, therefore, that the true reason why women had not engaged more extensively in this employment was because no one had taken pains to call their attention to it.
There was one branch of the subject which it was difficult to understand exactly. Almost every person who wrote about strawberries seemed to have the best variety that had ever been known or heard of. This was especially noticeable in the statements of those who had plants to sell. After reading one advertisement, I felt satisfied that the particular fruit therein described was what I ought to have. But on examining the next announcement, I was confoundedat learning that there was a still better kind. So it ran through probably half a dozen: every one was best. Indeed, there appeared to be no inferior strawberry-plants for sale. I had no friend to consult with who could explain this remarkable state of things; and being thus left in doubt as to whether there was really any merit in plants thus extravagantly praised, I came to the conclusion that the safer way would be to let them all go, and adopt some well-established kind, that was known to be a sure bearer, and which could be had at a moderate price, leaving the costly novelties to be patronized by those who had more money to spare. In two or three of these florid descriptions of new varieties I observed that great stress was laid on the enormous size of the fruit, as well as their unequalled productiveness; but there was no mention of quality: what that was appeared to be studiously suppressed. An orange solitary may be as large as a pumpkin; but if it be proportionably coarse and flavorless, one would conclude, that, the greater the size, the less desirable the fruit. It was important for me to begin right; so, abandoning these new and costly varieties, I determined to have something nearer home, about whose value there could be no doubt. I was to produce fruit for the public, not for our own private use, and therefore must have a well-established market berry.
I do not mean to undervalue the great horticultural novelties of the day, merely because I was unable to purchase, or because others were evidently realizing great sums by first originating them, and then spreading their merits before the world, though sometimes in extravagant terms. The world must have been waiting for them, or they could not have become so suddenly popular. And the painstaking horticulturist would not have devoted years of patient care and watchfulness, exercising a consummate skill in stimulating Nature to the production of a better plant, a more gorgeous flower, or a more luscious fruit, had he not known that there was a waiting public, ever ready to reward his skill and perseverance by extensive purchases at liberal prices. It is to this certainty of generous remuneration that we are indebted for nearly all the great and truly valuable novelties with which the horticultural world has been supplied. A rose, with tints unknown a century ago, has proved a stepping-stone to the discoverer's fortune. The skilful propagator of new or rare verbenas has grown rich from annual sales of these beautiful bedding plants. The tulip is an historical monument of floral enthusiasm. When Mexico was opened to Northern enterprise, it yielded of its boundless exuberance the cactus and the dahlia, sources of untold wealth to those florists who ministered to the popular taste for Nature's richest productions. The originator of a new and valuable grape has found in it a fortune. Accident has sometimes been productive of equally remunerative results. A solitary berry, growing in the tangled hedge-row of an abandoned field, has been the foundation of an independence.
The history of horticulture abounds in instances akin to these. The enthusiasts who produced or discovered such novelties have conferred inestimable benefits on the world. The originator of the Albany seedling strawberry unquestionably added threefold to the quantity of that surpassingly delicious fruit. He devoted years of patient care and watchfulness to a nursery containing thousands of seedlings, of which one only was found to be worthy of cultivation. And if he had his reward, he was well entitled to it. He has given us a plant superior to all that Nature's handiwork had previously produced,—superior in the elements of commercial value, particularly in a productiveness so far surpassing that of any of its predecessors as to establish it as the standard by which every subsequent competitor must be estimated. It has spread over every section of our vast country, taking kindly to every variety of soil and climate, covering with its robust foliage many thousands of acres, producing tens of thousands of bushels of fruit, crowding our markets with abundant supplies, andproducing profits to its cultivators such as no other strawberry has ever yielded. As a market berry it was quickly recognized as being unsurpassed, nor have its numerous modern rivals been yet able to shake its strong hold upon the public favor. I know—at least my reading has taught me—that there are multitudes of recent candidates for popularity, claiming to be far superior to this, all struggling to displace the old-time favorite. I am unable—here at least—to discuss their several merits, and therefore dismiss the novelties I have never tried for the great standard which has been so long approved.
We knew it was by means of this prolific berry that our neighbors, so disagreeable to us, were making themselves so popular. It was the variety sold by my widow in the market. Its character as a fruit for the million being thus established, we adopted it without hesitation.
My agricultural journals told me how many plants were to be put upon an acre, what were to be the distances apart, when to set them, with other particulars as to the mode of cultivation. But one of the most important facts taught me by my little library was that I could set the plants in the fall as advantageously as in the spring. This would give me a great start. I learned that in the two last autumn months, the temperature of the earth being higher than that of the air, the former would act as a sort of forcing-house, stimulating the growth and expansion of the roots, so that before winter set in they would become so firmly established as to be enabled to survive the severest weather, and be pretty sure to give me quite a handsome crop the succeeding summer. There was nothing to do, then, but to procure the plants and get them in. Fred undertook to have the ground broken up and put in complete order for me,—that is, half an acre. We were not able to spare money enough to buy more plants, but intended to fill up the other half-acre from the runners that would be thrown out the following summer. I knew that our ill-natured neighbors had thrown away more plants than I needed, which they could have given to me without being themselves any the poorer. But perhaps I ought not to indulge in reproachful reminiscences of this kind. Still, it is difficult for one who never feels a selfish wish to understand how others can be so differently constituted. If such people would only for once indulge in the luxury of doing a really kind action, I am inclined to think they would be tempted into many repetitions of it. But it will be seen that I succeeded in getting my pets into the ground by depending on myself, letting others pursue their own way.
The rows were struck out only three feet apart, and the plants were set a foot asunder in the rows. This was not too close for our little garden culture, though it may be much too crowded for large fields. I was anxious to have as much fruit as possible on a small surface, intending to keep the runners from overspreading the ground. This desire for a great crop is the common anxiety of most fruit-growers, especially of beginners, and I think is frequently the cause of those failures that so often happen to them. My sister and I took a holiday from the factory and went to planting. My mother also did her full share of the labor. With such novices, it was of course very slow work, and employed us two or three days.
Very soon the neighbors stopped, as they were passing the half-latticed garden-gate, and looked in to see what we were about. This neighborly curiosity is the most natural thing in the world. One always likes to know what is going on either next door or in the opposite house. I confess to a weakness of that sort myself. Hence we took no offence, even when there was quite a crowd looking in.
When it was ascertained that we were planting strawberries, great surprise was manifested, and all kinds of remarks were made. Had we been planting potatoes, it would have been all right, as every family that had a little patch of ground in that neighborhood raisedpotatoes, though they paid no profit, while only one—the Tetchys—cultivated strawberries, which afforded a very handsome profit. I think it must have been the novelty of seeing women thus occupied that occasioned much of the surprise.
Before noon of the first day the whole Tetchy family crowded up to the gate and stood there a long time observing our movements. Their quick ears had been among the first to catch the news. They tried the latch, but Jane had locked the gate, determined that not one of them should come in. Thus excluded, all they could do was to indulge in a variety of ill-natured remarks.
"I knew that was what they were after!" said Mrs. Tetchy to her husband, in a voice that was intended for us to hear.
But we kept our backs to them, taking no notice of what they said.
"Another strawberry-garden, I suppose!" exclaimed the daughter, Miss Annabella Tetchy, who had not yet had the good luck to change her ugly name.
"Cream, too, no doubt!" added Tetchy himself, in a tone so insulting that I thought it unworthy of one calling himself a man.
These provoking taunts continued until the spiteful family appeared to have either relieved themselves or grown tired of having the cold shoulder of a profound contempt all the time turned toward them. It was a very hard thing for me to bear this malicious insolence. I could have retorted keenly on them by some plain insinuation touching their iron-tailed cow, of which they probably thought that no one but themselves had any knowledge. But we preserved our self-respect by maintaining silence.
These little private vexations were about all that we encountered during the whole progress of our strawberry-planting. The neighbors, with the exception of the Tetchys, having no particular interest as to how we got along or whether we got along at all, very soon ceased to take any notice of what we were doing. The novelty of the new enterprise died away as speedily, for the season at least, as if we had been sowing turnips. Under the fine October weather, the plants quickly took root, and went on growing so vigorously that some of them even put out an occasional runner. But these were immediately clipped off, as sure to impair the vigor of the plant, which could now support no extraneous offshoots. There were some plants, however, that apparently stood still, refusing to grow, while others died out entirely. But casualties of this sort are always to be expected. They occur with old hands at strawberry-planting, and beginners must not think to escape them.
I felt inexpressibly proud of my achievement. I watched this work of my own hands so closely, being up and in the garden long before breakfast, that I think the very shape and position of every plant came to be imprinted on my memory. I know that I could detect the changes that took place in the look of each particular pet. I thought of them when operating the treadle of my sewing-machine at the factory, and I hurried home more expeditiously than aforetime, to enjoy even the brief autumn twilight among my strawberries. I sometimes even dreamed of them on my pillow. Now my agricultural library became far more interesting and useful than before. I had had a touch of real, actual practice, and could already understand and appreciate many suggestions which had heretofore been of doubtful significancy. Thus the long winter came gradually in, closing up the great volume of vegetable life, but affording me abundant time for studying that other volume which had so singularly fallen in my way.
Who made all the old saws?—not the rusty steel affairs that Patrick and John ply upon Down-East fire-wood at our back doors,—but those sharp-pointed, trenchant ones that philosophers love to draw across the hearts of men, cutting, tearing, grinding away, till the fibre of their being quivers under the remorseless teeth. Many were forged, we all know, in the celebrated workshop of W. Shakspeare; other particularly fine-toothed ones were pointed by a French artisan named Rochefoucauld; and many more, bright and lucent, are borrowed—reverently be it spoken!—from that grand arsenal of truth and power built by the hands of the great holy men of holy times. But who made the many tough old blades which have a temper that outlives time,—whose rugged points have never lost a whit of their keenness, after having torn their way through human bosoms, been hung up and taken down again for centuries, and never a maker's name upon them?
Going by a little squalid old house, some nights ago, I saw a light in a ground-floor window; and peeping in,—my name is not Tom, nor was it any Godiva I was espying, but I could not help a sort of curiosity to see what that eleven-o'clock light might exhibit,—I saw a pale face, and a thin, bent form. Soft hair was parted from a white brow, and fell in ringlets upon a shabby dress. Eyes, that might have shone with bewitching brilliancy in certain parlors I know of, were sadly and intently fixed upon the quick-drawn needle which the thin fingers were assiduously and wearily plying. The light came from a half-burnt candle.—No, Mrs. Grundy, your friend Asmodeus did not knock nor go in; but he thought of you, although you were at that moment virtuously bestowed, with matronly grace, in curtained slumbers. Asmodeus looked, and beheld, through a hole in the curtain, an old, rusty saw crunching away across that poor, desolate, weary heart,Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.—"Stop, stop, father!" cries Asmodeus, Jr. "What does that mean?"—Why, my dear boy, that is the saw which was tearing the poor woman's heart. The words mean, in plain English, "The play is not worth the candle." In ancient days folks did not have big glass chandeliers, all sparkling with gas. The Asmodei of old did not turn up, or down, or out, the luminaries which bathed them in midnight brilliancy. They snuffed them. When the old French kings danced minuets with their most virtuous and respected maids of honor on private stages, they were enlivened by tallow flames. They had no quarterly bills for so many feet of light; for they bought it by the pound. When Monsieur Deuse-Ace rattled the dice or shuffled the cards with Signor Double-Six, he looked for luck, not at a patent safety-burner, but at the stranger in the flickering candle-flame. Now sometimes M. Deuse-Ace came out of that rattling and shuffling with an empty purse, and, when called on to pay for the tallow, he swore, like a bad man as he was, that the play was not worth the candle. So I think that famous old saw must have been made by some unhappy Murad who was unlucky in turning up small numbers or having dealt to him cards considerably below kings,—though knaves were his constant companions. But this elegant English,figlio mio, may be more idiomatically rendered, perhaps, in the language of the day, thus:—It doesn't pay! Paying is the touchstone nowadays to which everything is brought, from the stock of the great Beaugous Bootjack Company to the great Rebellion of 1861.
Well, there sat the poor woman,—you see, Mrs. Grundy, that she was no Godiva, nor I a peeping Tom. My eyesight is good yet,—and I could see that old saw deep in her sad, trembling bosom. No! thatjeuwas a bad one. She had lost her youth, her happiness, herall, on thetapis vertof human life. It had turned upnoirwhen it should have comerouge, and the candle was to pay for. Do you know what strain of music came sadly on my ear, and how I felt when I saw that the horrible old saw was keeping time to it? It was a little song of Hood's. You know it. Many know it. She knew it, ah, too well! She knew it by heart.
Now candles are stuck in all sorts of sticks: golden branches, silver arms, brass stands, tin cups, bottles, wooden blocks, potatoes, and turnips. We all have seen candles and candelabras; and if we don't employ them as corks for our empty bottles, why, John puts them into the last new chimney ornament, and we have to pay for them when the play is over. Skinflint is a nice man,—pious and genteel, a good father, husband, etc. He made money in that famous Rotten-Iron Company, which paid the original purchasers cent per cent, and then, some how or other, passed off from the stock list. He was largely concerned in the well-known Cheetamall Copper Company, which gave the first block-takers such a great profit, but has not been quoted lately,—is not worked, probably. He took a fabulous sum out of that celebrated corner in the Greenipluck Lead Company. Mr. S. drives his span, goes to Newport in the summer, is conspicuous at the opera, and loves to see Mrs. S. in gorgeous array. What more would you have? Does Skinflint ever think his candle is snuffy or burns dimly? Does he like that great red eye which gleams out of the flame, as though it foretold an unwelcome guest? Could it be young Spooney, who was ruined in that Rotten-Iron affair? or his friend Shallow, who was induced to borrow privately of his employers in hopes of making a fortune in the Cheetamall Copper; but lost both fortune and name thereby? Might it be the dying glare of his friend Needy, who hung himself after the Greenipluckexposé, which reduced him to beggary? Or is it the eye of Society which he knows looks on his span, and his Newport house, and his wife's jewels, with the flash of contempt? How is it, Mrs. Grundy? which candle is best to sit beside,—Mr. Skinflint's, or the one you thought shone on a Godiva I was spying? Do you think S.'s candle is really worth the price?
And there is your friend, Miss Free-manners,—you are shocked that I mention her name to you, are you? Why, she used to be your childhood's companion; but since she has taken to gentlemen's society in particular, you don't notice her, and are struck with virtuous indignation when Grundy nods to her in the street. Surely Miss F. dresses beautifully and is handsome as a picture, and is much sought after by gentlemen of doubtful nicety in the choice of female friends. She leads a jolly life, certainly; for she rides in an elegant barouche, has nothing to do, no household cares to vex her, no pork to boil, no potatoes to peel, and has genuine wax candles in the private boudoir where she receives those not over-nice gentlemen. What more could feminine heart wish? You don't know her now. Mrs. Asmodeus, kind-hearted as she is, declines to recognize her; and even Mr. A. himself does not care to be seen under circumstances which might imply acquaintance. But what does Miss F. care for this? She is brilliant, and admired by plenty of people,—such as they are. And yet do you know that I question whether, at times, when she sits alone in that boudoir, and thinks how her old friend Mrs. Grundy gives her the cut direct, how the companions of her innocent youth all look coldly and sternly on her, how that costly mirror tells her that her beauty is beginning to fade, the thought of the future does not come over her like the rasp of an old saw under her white bosom? and whether she does not ask herself if the play is worth the price of those real wax candles? and whether they will shed light and cheer upon her as they burn down, and she might not have been happier with tallow and purity? Queen Mary must have put some such questions to herself in Lochleven Castle; and Cleopatranever would have got that serpent for the purpose she did, without some such thoughts. I imagine that St. Helena must have known of long and wearisome calculations on the cost of the game which ended there; and difficult must have been their reconcilement to the price paid for the brilliant light which there died out.
Look into that dark and dreary cell, my boy! There is a rough, coarse, brutal man, pondering over his past life. He will be hung to-morrow. Would you ever suppose that man was once a smooth-faced, bright little fellow like you? Do you see any signs of a mother's tender caress on his sullen brow? Does it look as though it had ever been held up close and lovingly to a fond woman's heart? Are there any remains of that clear, pure light which once looked out innocently from those bloodshot eyes? All this was so once. What does he think of now? Is he acting over the dark deed which brought him into this uninviting sleeping-place? Does he see that silent chamber into which a guilty man is stealing, with crime in his heart,—no, not in his heart; for he has none!—but in his thoughts, and remorseless ferocity to execute it? Does he see the gigantic shadows cast on the walls around by the miserable candle he holds? the still face of the sleeper? and does he hear the smothered groan and the bubbling sigh? Does he see in his hand the paltry metal which he has secured, and hear his own hurried, flying steps? Or is he counting the cost of that light which showed him where to strike? Is he making that never-ending computation,—throwing into one scale innocence, happiness, manhood, love, life, and into the other a miserable candle-end? My boy, you and I will get a slate and pencil before we go into such a chandlery operation!
Why do I tell such horrible stories?—My dear, sweet, tender-hearted Mrs. G., people commit murder every day: I mean polite, fashionable murder. They give a stab at your reputation and mine, and smile sweetly all the while. They watch and wait till our backs are turned, and then they whip out their long tongues, and—have at you! Your good name is so mercilessly hacked, cut, slashed, and gashed, that there is scarcely enough fair outside left to recognize you by. They swear that your most innocent and gentle pastime is the abomination of decent people; and, with that happy faculty of judging others by themselves,—a mark of broad, comprehensive minds,—they run up a list of grievances, among which swindling and adultery are common trifles. Peeping out from their hole in the curtain, swelling with the nobleness of their occupation, and filled with honest indignation at your goings on, they see, with a clairvoyance which puts Hume in the background, all the errors of omission and commission your guilty hands and hearts achieve. To be sure, they back them like a whale or neck them like a camel, according to the exuberance of their imagination, or the strength of their ill-will, or the innate suspicion of their natures. But when your broad back is towards them, they whet those sharp tongues against each other, and—thug! you have them under your fifth rib, and out at the other side. Well, perhaps you, Mrs. G., have used such a weapon. Perhaps, when you found out how innocent the poor victim was, you may have been rewarded by a scrape of that old saw across your conscience, and the smoke of the smouldering wick may have smelled nauseous to you.—You never did? Well, I am glad of it, Mrs. G., because, I assure you, that fogo must be a sickening one to carry about under one's nose.
But if you object to the horrible, I will gently slide into the pathetic and melancholic. There is our friend Atticus,—I call him so in public, because it would not do to name Brown right out, when telling his private griefs. Atticus, when he read a book lately, having "A man married is a man marred" for a motto, smiled a grim smile, and muttered audibly, "Mrs. Atticus is charming, isn't she?—pretty and nice and neat. Why shouldn't Atticus be the happiest man in the world? Yousay that everybody thinks he is. Ah, yes! that's because everybody behind the blinds or beside the curtains doesn't see the real things that go wrong,—only the imaginary ones." Atticus, when all alone in his library, with no holes in the curtains, might tell a different story. He might tell of a desolate heart, a solitary intellect,—hopes, dreams, buried. He might ask himself the use of lifting the mind above the level of common things,—of hoping to carry another one with him in equal companionship,—of allowing the vulgarities of life to become disgusting,—and of striving for a clearer, brighter, loftier sphere. Why refine the thoughts, elevate the aspirations, and broaden the heart, till the nature shrinks from contact with commonplaces, and shudders at the coarse touch of worldly tongues? You see that Atticus uses broad generalities, and never once individualizes Mrs. Atticus. And if Mrs. Atticus were to steal down stairs in her night-gown, he would be ever so kind and gentle, and playfully tell her she would catch cold, that she had not enough clothing on, that the season was raw, that the mercury stood at thirty, that it would snow to-morrow, etc., etc. And when Mrs. Atticus retreated to her warm bed, he might look round on the weighty volumes, and their wealth of lore, and think how he trod the path they pointed out in solitary silence; and then, as he passed up stairs, a great, coarse rasp might make his fine-strung nerves quiver, and he might look at the candle he carried and it would suggest to him the old Gallic saw which had just given him the spasm. So you see that the curtains and peepholes had never discovered the price-current of the Atticus brand of candles.
Nobody knows where some folks buy or burn their candles. Some people keep them in closets when they do not find it convenient to procure well-mounted skeletons. There is Mrs. Hidehart,—you know whom I mean,—when she was a blooming young girl, she fell in love with the Colonel, and, like a foolish thing as she was, she poured out all the wealth of her affection upon him, as if the cruse had a magic power of recuperation. Well, the Colonel turned out to be a rotten one; and bitter was the taste in the poor girl's mouth for many a day! By-and-by, when she thought she had washed it well out, and when Sm——, (was I going to say Smith? No!) when Hidehart came along and bent and begged and prayed for her, she said "Yes!" as she might have assented to an invitation to hear Patti. Well, that sort of thing don't answer in the long run. It is all very well to have love without money; but money without love is another matter. Mr. Hidehart turned out worse than the Colonel; for he was stupid, vulgar, and mean. And she was so nice, so delicate, so bright, so intellectual! Oh, what hours of bitter regret, what biting of lips, what flushes of shame, what heart-shocks that stopped the life-blood, and—well, truth must out—what caressing memories of the young hero who first leaped over her young love's ramparts! what loathing of the sensual lout who had been carelessly suffered to take command of the fortress!—Why, Mr. Asmodeus! you don't mean my friend, Mrs. Smith!—Did I mention any such name? No, Mrs. Grundy, I mean Mrs. Hidehart, a mild, patient, smiling wife. But, up in a little corner closet of her chamber, she keeps, not a skeleton,—for those are shocking things to lie near a lady's slumbers, they are bad enough in the shape of crinoline,—but a candle; and when she is very much tried, she sits all alone there by its nickering light, and thinks. What a life's fortune she has paid for the privilege! and how fortunate that the Colonel doesn't come back reformed!
The Quaker poet of New England, who has written one of the most beautiful things in the language, has hit off our friends Atticus and Hidehart most admirably. He was not personally acquainted with them; and so he has invested them with a tender, imaginative romance, and made the one a barefooted lass and the other a grave judge. Did you ever read it, Mrs. Grundy? Itis called "Maud Muller"; and Asmodeus would buy a gross of the best wax lights, if he could get a quarter of the illumination out of them which shone on the pen that traced those lines.
Why, Mr. Asmodeus, you frighten me! What! Mr. Brown and Mrs. Smith?—My dear Madam, I mentioned no names, did I? But you may be sure that expensive candles are burned in houses where you think gas only is used. How do you know how Jones lights his house? I don't mean the parlor, where you and Mrs. Asmodeus display the family jewels on grand occasions, and where Mrs. Jones exhibits the splendor of her beauty and the radiance of her smiles. That is gas,—bright, beaming, brilliant gas. What else should irradiate the loving tenderness which unites Mr. and Mrs. Jones on such occasions? You don't suppose that Jones is goose enough to show his decayed home-grown fruit to you, when he invites you to sup with him in that frescoed dining-room? He picks out the rosy-cheeks for your entertainment; and the sour grapes, the spotted pomes, the mildewed berries are tucked away up-stairs. Now you are not invited into that store-room. You are, in fact, jealously kept out of it. Let us creep round the corner and look up at that window, now the company is all gone. You see a light there, don't you? Do you know what is burning? Is it gas, or oil, or kerosene, or spermaceti, or wax, or tallow? You will never know, Mrs. G.; for Jones trims that light himself. Bridget never saw it yet. Strange, isn't it, that Jones, a rich man, with plenty of servants, should humble himself to such a menial occupation? My own impression is, that he uses a candle in that room, and has paid so high a price for it that he doesn't dare to trust any one else with it.
There are many such lighted windows; and who knows the game that is going on behind the curtain?Va-lent-ils la chandelle?When Pinxit looks around on the accumulating canvases gathering dust in his unfrequented studio, and thinks of the dreams which gave fairy tints to his palette, that none else could perceive,—when he feels that his genius is unacknowledged, and his toil in vain,—when he sees Dorb's crudities in every window, and Dorb's praises in the "Art-Journals," while Pinxit is starving unknown,—doesn't he take down the old saw from his easel, and try its edge over his proud, swelling heart? When Scripsit, who has dipped his pen in his soul to inscribe those glowing lines which were to bear him up and set him across the golden spire of the pinnacle of Fame, and whose fine frenzy has as yet given him but a scurvy mundane support, when Scripsit brings home his modest rasher, and finds, on unfolding it, that it is wrapped in the unsold sheets of his last lyric,—doesn't he think that the tallow which helped him to pen the thoughts in the midnight watches was the costliest offeu sacré? When Senator Patriota sits brooding over the speech which has carried the opposition against him, and sees his honorable friend slipping into the place he has manœuvred for at the expense of manliness, truth, consistency, and honesty, does he not conjugate the verbvaloirnegatively? When Madame Favorita has made her last curtsy for the night behind the foot-lights, has thrown off her tawdry frippery, and sits in her lonely chamber, glowering at the image of the young rival who has won all the applause,—when she bemoans her waning charms and the wearisome life which has lost its sparkle, and sees its emptiness and hollowness,—does she not look wistfully at that little flame which flickers on her hollowing cheek, from which the stage-blush has been washed, and think the game a losing one? The Senator lives near by, and that is Madame's room over the way. Did not Cæsar have a candle that he bought of Brutus? And how many Mesdames have cursed the name of Mademoiselle!
And don't we, all of us, Mrs. G., take out our French Grammars, and learn, at some period of our lives, to translate that Gallic phrase? Don't we all get that old saw down and try its teeth onour tender flesh? When the old friends drop off, and the dear eyes we have loved look strange to us,—when the darling of our hearts is ruthlessly torn away, and we sit in the darkness of the tomb,—when shame for the living lost bows us to the earth in anguish,—when life has become meaningless, and nothing remains to vitalize the monotony of existence,—when we look upon our own past hopes, ambitions, interests, as though they characterized some other being, long since departed,—when the morning light and the evening shade, May's sweet flowers and November's yellow leaves, are only the symbols of Time's weary flight, and awaken neither cheer nor gloom,—do we not all of us hear, in the silence of our hearts, the grating of that blade? Statues of Memnon are we all. The bright morning sun brings melodious music from our hearts; the soft, perfumed air bears afar the strains of jocund hope, passionate love, and aspiring faith. But when the shadows fall, the strains lose their sweetness and beauty; one by one, the rich harmonies change into harsh dissonance, then cease altogether; and the sun sets on a silent form which in the morning sent forth seraphic tones.
My dear boy, let us hope that you and I and all those we love so dearly will always have a bright sun above our earthly horizon to give us cheer, and to light our way, and to bring sweet songs from our hearts. And if it should set in the night of suffering and sorrow, let us guide ourselves by a holier, purer, steadier light than mortal hands can mould or kindle. So pass me those snuffers, and I will put out the candle, and we will go to bed. For all this paper of candle-ends I have collected, Bridget will find our beautiful wax-light scarcely burned; and, certainly, I think it a very cheap and excellent purchase,N'est-ce pas, mon fils?
At nine next morning, prayers and breakfast being despatched,—during which Parson Brummem had determined to leave Reuben to the sting of his conscience,—the master appears in the school-room with his wristbands turned up, and his ferule in hand, to enforce judgment upon the culprit. It had been a frosty night, and the cool October air had not tempted the boys to any wide movement out of doors, so that no occupant of the parsonage had as yet detected the draggled white banner that hung from the prison-window.
Through Keziah, the parson gave orders for Master Johns to report himself at once in the school-room. The maid returned presently, clattering down the stairs in a great fright,—
"Reuben's gone, Sir!"
"Gone?" says the tall master, astounded. He represses a wriggle of healthful satisfaction on the part of his pupils by a significant lift of his ferule, then moves ponderously up the stairs for a personal visit to the chamber of the culprit. The maid had given true report; there was no one there. Never had he been met with such barefaced rebellion. Truants, indeed, there had been in days gone by; but that a pupil under discipline should have tied together Mistress Brummem's linen and left it draggling in this way, in the sight of every passer-by, was an affront to his authority which he had not deemed possible.
An hour thereafter, and he had assigned the morning's task to the boys (which he had ventured to lengthen by a third, in view—as he said, with a grim humor—of their extremely cheerfulspirits); established Mistress Brummem in temporary charge, and was driving his white-faced nag down the road which led toward Ashfield. The frosted pools crackled under the wheels of the old chaise; the heaving horse wheezed as the stern parson gave his loins a thwack with the slackened reins and urged him down the turnpike which led away through the ill-kept fields, from the rambling, slatternly town. Stone walls that had borne the upheaval of twenty winters reeled beside the way. Broad scars of ochreous earth, from which the turnpike-menders had dug material to patch the wheel-track, showed ooze of yellow mud with honeycombs of ice rimming their edges, and supporting a thin film of sod made up of lichens and the roots of five-fingers. Raw, shapeless stones, and bald, gray rocks, only half unearthed, cumbered the road; while bunches of dwarfed birches, browsed by straying cattle, added to the repulsiveness of the scene. Nor were the inclosed lands scarcely more inviting. Lean shocks of corn that had swayed under the autumn winds stretched at long intervals across fields of thin stubble; a few half-ripened pumpkins, hanging yet to the seared vines,—whose leaves had long since been shrivelled by the frost,—showed their shining green faces on the dank soil. In other fields, overrun with a great shaggy growth of rag-weed, some of the parson's flock—father and blue-nosed boys—were lifting poor crops of "bile-whites" or "merinos." From time to time, a tall house jutted upon the road, with unctuous pig-sty under the lee of the garden-fence and wood-pile sprawling into the highway, where the parson would rein up his nag, and make inquiry after the truant Reuben.
A half-dozen of these stops and inquiries proved wholly vain; yet the sturdy parson urged his poor, heaving nag forward, until he had come to the little gatehouse which thrust itself quite across the high road at some six miles' distance from Bolton Church. No stray boy had passed that day. Thereupon the parson turned, and, after retracing his way for two miles or more, struck into a cross-road which led westward. There were the same fruitless inquiries here at the scattered houses, and when he came at length upon the great river-road along which the boy had passed at the first dawn there was no one who could tell anything of him; and by noon the parson reëntered the village, disconsolate and hungry. He was by no means a vindictive man, and could very likely have forgiven Reuben the blow he had struck. He had no conception of the hidden causes which had wrought in the lad such burst of anger. He conceived only that Satan had taken hold of him, and he had strong faith in the efficacy of the rod for driving Satan out.
After dinner he administered a sharp lecture to his pupils, admonishing them of the evils of disobedience, and warning them that "God sometimes left bad boys to their own evil courses, and to run like the herd of swine into which the unclean spirits entered,—of which account might be found in Mark v. 13,—down a steep place, and be choked."
The parson still had hope that Reuben might appear at evening; and he forecast a good turn which he would make, in such event, upon the parable of the Prodigal Son (with the omission, however, of the fatted calf). But the prodigal did not return. Next day there was the same hope, but fainter. Still, the prodigal Reuben did not return. Whereupon the parson thought it his duty to write to Brother Johns, advising him of the escape of Reuben,—"he having stolen away in the night, tying together and much draggling Mrs. Brummem's pair of company sheets, (no other being out of wash,) and myself following after vainly, the best portion of a day, much, perturbed in spirit, in my chaise. I duly instructed my parishioners to report him, if found, which has not been the case. I trust that in the paternal home, if he has made his way thither, he may be taught to open his 'ear to discipline,' and 'return from iniquity.' Job xxxvi. 10."
The good parson was a type of not afew retired country ministers in New England forty years ago: a heavy-minded, right-meaning man; utterly inaccessible to any of the graces of life; no bird ever sang in his ear; no flower ever bloomed for his eye; a man to whom life was only a serious spiritual toil, and all human joys a vanity to be spurned; preaching tediously long sermons, and counting the fatigue of the listeners a fitting oblation to spiritual truth; staggering through life with a great burden of theologies on his back, which it was his constant struggle to pack into smaller and smaller compass,—not so much, we fear, for the relief of others as of himself. Let us hope that the burden—like that of Christian in the "Pilgrim's Progress"—slipped away before he entered the Celestial Presence, and left him free to enjoy and admire, more than he found time to do on earth, the beauty of that blessed angel in the higher courts whose name is Charity.
Reuben, meantime, pushed boldly down the open road, until broad sunlight warned him to a safer path across the fields. He had been too much of a rambler during those long Saturday afternoons at Ashfield, to have any dread of a tramp through swamp-land or briers. "Who cared for wet feet or a scratch? Who cared for a rough scramble through the bush, or a wade (if it came to that) through ever so big a brook? Who cared for old Brummem and his white-faced nag?" In fact, he had the pleasure of seeing the parson's venerable chaise lumbering along the public road at a safe distance away, an hour before noon; and he half wished he were near enough to give the jolly old nag a good switching across the flanks. He had begged a bit of warm breakfast in the morning at an outlying house, and at the hour when he caught sight of his pursuer he was lying under the edge of a wood, lunching upon the gingerbread Keziah had provided, and beginning to reckon up soberly what was to be done.
His first impulse had been simply to escape a good flogging and the taunts of the boys. He had shunned the direct Ashfield turnpike, because he knew pursuit—if there were any—would lead off in that direction. From the river road he might diverge into that, if he chose. But if he went home,—what then? The big gray eyes of Aunt Eliza he knew would greet him at the door, looking thunderbolts. Adèle, and maybe Rose, would welcome him in kindly way enough,—but very pityingly, when the Doctor should summon him quietly into his low study. For they knew, and he knew, that the big rod would presently come down from its place by the Major's sword,—a rod that never came down, except it had some swift office to perform. And next day, perhaps,—whatever might be the kindly pleadings of Adèle, (thus far he flattered himself,) the old horse Dobbins would be in harness to carry him back to Bolton Hill, where of a surety some new birch was already in pickle for the transgressor. Or, if this mortification were spared, there would be the same weary round of limitations and exactions from which he longed to break away. And as he sits there under the lee of the wood,—seeing presently Brummem's heavy cavalry wheel and retire from pursuit,—the whole scene of his last altercation, in the study at Ashfield drifts before him again clear as day.
"I'm bad," (this was the way he broke out upon the old man after the usual discipline,)—"I know I'm bad, and all the worse for the way you try to make me good. There's Phil Elderkin, now,—you say to me, over and over, 'See Phil, he doesn't do so.' But he does,—only his father knows he does; he a'n't punished, if he isn't in at nine o'clock for prayers, without telling where he's been. It's all underhanded with me, and with Phil it's all aboveboard. I have to read proper books that I don't care a copper about, and so I steal 'em into my chamber; and Aunt Eliza, prying about, finds 'Arabian Nights' hid under the sheets; and then there's a row! Phil reads 'em; and there's nobodyforever looking over his shoulder to see what he's reading. I think Phil's father trusts him more than you do me."
"But, my son, you tell me you are bad, and that I can't trust you."
"You can't, because you don't; and that makes me feel the Devil in me."
"My son!"
"I know it; you think it's a bad word; but Phil says Devil; and it's true. And besides, you forbid my going where the other boys go, and that maddens me and makes me swear, and the fellows laugh; and because I can't go, I do something worse."
"My poor Reuben, do you know where such badness will lead you?"
"Oh, yes, I know; I've heard it often enough; it'll lead to hell, I guess."
"Reuben! Reuben! what does this mean?"
"I can't help it, father. There's Phil and Gus Hapgood went chestnutting the other Saturday, and because you were afraid I shouldn't be back before sundown you kept me at home. I know I was ten times worse than if I'd been out chestnutting all night and half Sunday. I hate Sunday!"
"That, Reuben, is because you are wicked."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"I am glad, my son, that you see your sins and admit them."
"There's not much comfort in that," Reuben had said. "I'm none the better for it."
"It's the first step, my son, toward repentance."
Reuben laughed a bitter laugh,—a laugh that made his father shudder.
"Sit down with me now, Reuben, and read a chapter in God's word; and after it we will pray for His help."
"There it is again!" the boy had replied. "I knew it would come to that!"
"And do you refuse, Reuben?"
"No, Sir, I don't, because I know it wouldn't be any use; for if I did, I should have to go up stairs and mope in my chamber, and have Aunt Eliza staring in upon me as if I was a murderer. But I sha'n't know what you read five minutes after."
"My son, don't you know that will be an offence against God?"
"I can't help it."
"Youcanhelp it, my son!—youcan!"
And at this the Doctor, in an agony of spirit, (the boy recalled it perfectly,) had risen and paced back and forth in his study; then, after a little, threw himself upon his knees near to Reuben, and prayed silently, with his hands clasped.
The boy had melted somewhat at this, and still more when the father rose with traces of a tear in his eye.
"Are you not softened now, my son?"
"I always am when I see you going on that way," said Reuben.
"My poor son!"—and he had drawn the boy to him, gazing into the face from which the blue eyes of the lost Rachel looked calmly out, moved beyond himself.
If, indeed, the lost Rachel had been really there between the two, to interpret the heart of the son to the father!
Is Reuben whimpering as the memory of this last tender episode comes to his memory? What would Phil or the rest of the Ashfield fellows say to a runaway boy sniffling under the edge of the wood? Not he, by George! And he munches at his roll of gingerbread with a new zest,—confirming his vagabond purpose, that just now wavered, with a thought of those tedious Saturday nights and the "reasons annexed," and Aunt Eliza's sharp elbow nudging him upon the hard pew-benches, as she gives a muffled, warning whisper,—"Attend to the sermon, Reuben!"
And so, with glorious visions of Sindbad the Sailor in his mind, and a cheery remembrance of Crusoe when he cut himself adrift from home and family for his wonderful adventures, Reuben pushes gallantly on through the woods in the direction of the river. He knows that somewhere, up or down, a sloop will be found bound for New York. From the heights around Ashfield, he has seen, time and again, their white sails speckingsome distant field of blue. Once, too, upon a drive with the Doctor, he had seen these marvellous vessels from a nearer point, and had looked wistfully upon their white decks and green companion-ways.
Overhead the jays cried from the bare chestnut-trees; from time to time the whirr of a brood of partridges startled him; the red squirrels chattered; still he pushed on, catching a chance dinner at a wayside farm-house, and by night had come within plain sight of the water. The sloop Princess lay at the Glastenbury dock close by, laden with wood and potatoes, and bound for New York the next morning. The kind-hearted skipper, who was also the owner of the vessel, took a sudden fancy to the sore-footed, blue-eyed boy who came aboard to bargain for a passage to the city. The truant was not, indeed, overstocked with ready money, but was willing to pawn what valuables he had about him, and hinted at a rich aunt in the city who would make good what moneys were lacking. The skipper has a shrewd suspicion how the matter stands, and, with a kindly sympathy for the lad, consents to give him passage on condition he drops a line into the mail to tell his friends which way he has gone; and taking a dingy sheet of paper from the locker under his berth, he seats Reuben with pen in hand at the cabin-table, whereupon the boy writes,—