The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858
TekstBen, the gardener, was that indulgent individual. He made for me, with his own industrious hands, what he calls a "jaunting-car-r-r-r." It is a large wheeled couch on springs. I am a house-prisoner no longer!
I think the first ride I took in it was the most exciting event of my life. I was not exactly conscious of being mortally tired of looking from the same porch, over the same garden, into the same grove, and up to the same quarter of the heavens, for so many months; but when the change came unexpectedly, it was transporting happiness.
I suppose it may be so when we enter a future life. While here, we think we do not want to go elsewhere,—even to a better land; but when we reach that shore, we shall probably acknowledge it to be a lucky change.
Ben drew me carefully down the garden-path. I inhaled the breath of the tulips and hyacinths, as we passed them. I longed to stay there in that fairy land, for they brought back all the unspeakably rapturous feelings of my boyhood. Strange that such delight, after we become men, never visits us except in moments brief as lightning-flashes,—and then generally only as a memory,—not, as when we were children, in the form of a hope! When we are boys, and sudden joy stirs our hearts, we say, "Oh, how grand life will be!" When we are men, and are thus moved, it is, "Ah, how bright life was!"
Ben did not pause in the hyacinth-bed with me. He was anxious to prove the excellence of his vehicle; so he dragged me on in it, until we had nearly reached the boundary of our grounds, where the two tall, ragged old cedar-trees marked the extreme point of the evergreen shrubbery, and the view of the neighborhood lies before us. He stopped there and said,—
"Ye'll mappen like to look abroad a bit, and I'se go on to the post-office. Miss Kathleen bid me put you here fornenst the landskip, and then leave ye. She was greatly fashed at the coompany cooming just then. I must go, Sir."
"All right, Ben. You need not hurry."
The fresh morning wind whisked up to me and kissed my face bewitchingly, as Ben removed his tall, burly form from the narrow opening between the two trees, and left me alone there in the shade, with nothing between me and the view.
That moment revealed to me the joy of all liberated prisoners. My eyes flew over the wide earth and the broad heavens. After a sweeping view of both in their vast unity, I began to single out particulars. There lay the village in the lap of the hills, in summer time "bosomed high in tufted trees," but now only half veiled by the gauze-like green of the budding foliage. The apple orchards, still white with blossoms, and green with wheat or early grass, extended up the hills, and encroached upon the dense brown forests. There was the little red brick turret which crowned the village church, and my eye rested lovingly upon it. Not that it was anything to me; but Kate and all the women I respect love it, or what it stands for, and through them I hope to experience that warm love of worship, and of the places dedicated to it, which seems native to them, and much to be desired for us. I have cared little for such things hitherto. Their beauty and happiness are just beginning to dawn upon me.
–"Dear Jesus, can it be?
Wait we till all things go from us or e'er we go to thee?
Ay, sooth! We feel such strength in weal, thy love may seem
withstood:
But what are we in agony? Dumb, if we cry not 'God!'"
Behind the village I can see the blue hazy line of a far-distant horizon, as the valley opens in that direction. I know the sea lies there, and sometimes I fancy that mirage lifts its dark waters to my sight.
In a wooded nook on my right stands the little brown mill, with its huge wheel, and wide blue pond, and foamy waterfall. On that day I heard its drone, and saw the geese bathing, and throwing up the bright sparkling drops with their wings, until they fell like fountains.
On my left lay "a little lane serene," with stone fences half hid by blackberry-bushes—
–"A little lane serene,
Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroken snows.
Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green,
Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen
Than the plump wain at even
Bringing home four months' sunshine bound in sheaves."
I thought of those lines there and then, and they enhanced even the joy of Nature. They tinged her for me with the magic colors of poetry.
When I had thus scrutinized earth, I looked up to heaven. It had been so long shut from me by the network of the grove, that it was like escaping from confining toils, to look straight into Heaven's face, with nothing between, not even a cloud.
I have never seen a sweeter, calmer picture than that I gazed upon all the morning, and for which the two huge old cedars formed a rugged, but harmonious frame.
I have lived out of doors since. When it is cold, I am wrapped in a wadded robe Kate has made for me,—a capital thing, loose, and warm, and silky-soft. To an invalid with nerves all on edge, that is much. I never found out, until Kate enveloped me in its luxurious folds, what it was that rasped my feelings so, every morning, when I was dressed; I then knew it must have been my flashy woollen dressing-gown. I envy women their soft raiment, and I rather dread the day when I shall be compelled to wear coats again. (Let me cheat myself, if I can.)
III
May, 1855.
You wish to know more of Ben. I am glad of it. You shall be immediately gratified.
He is a true Scot, tall and strong and sandy-haired, with quick gray eyes, and a grave countenance, which relaxes only upon very great provocation.
Before I came here, he was known simply as a most careful, industrious, silent, saving machine, which cared not a jot for anybody in particular, but never wanted any spur to its own mechanical duty. It was never known to do a turn of work not legitimately its own, though mathematically exact in its proper office. But after I came here with my sister, a helpless cripple, we found out that the mathematical machine was a man, with a soft, beating heart. He was called upon to lift me from the carriage, and he did it as tenderly as a woman. He took me up as a mother lifts her child from the cradle, and I reposed passively in his strong arms, with a feeling of perfect security and ease.
From that day to this, Ben has been a most devoted friend to me. He watches for opportunities to do me kindnesses, and takes from his own sacred time to make me comforts. He has had me in his arms a hundred times, and carries me from bed to couch like a baby. I positively blush in writing this to you. You have known me to be a man for years, and here I am in arms again!
Ben's decent, well-controlled self-satisfaction, which almost amounts to dignity, is gone like a puff of smoke, at the word "Shanghai." Poor fellow! He once had the hen-fever badly, and he don't like to recall his sufferings.
The first I knew of it was by his starting and changing color one day, when I was reading the news from China to Kate in the garden, he being engaged in tying up a rose-bush close by. Kate saw his confusion, and smiled. Ben, catching the expression of her face, looked inconceivably sheepish. He dropped his ball of twine, and was about to go away, but thinking better of it, he suddenly turned and said, with a grin and a blush,—
"Ye'll be telling on me, Miss Kathleen! so I'se be aforehond wi' ye, and let Mr. Charlie knaw the warst frae my ain confassion, if he will na grudge me a quarter hour."
I signified my wish to hear, and with much difficulty and many questions wrung from him his "confassion." Kate afterwards gave me her version, and the facts were these:—
He persuaded Kate to let him buy a pair of Shanghais.
"But don't do it unless you are sure of its being worth while," Kate charged him; "because I can't afford to be making expensive experiments."
Ben counted out upon his fingers the numberless advantages.
"First, the valie o' the eggs for sale, (mony ane had fetched a dollar,) forbye the ecawnomy in size for cooking, one shell handing the meat o' twa common eggs. Second, the size o' the chickens for table, each hen the weight o' a turkey. Third, for speculation. Let the neebors buy, and she could realize sixty dollar on the brood o' twal' chicks; for they fetched ten dollar the pair, and could be had for nae less onywheres. Every hen wad hae twa broods at the smallest."
Kate doubted, but handed over the money. The next day she was awaked from a nap on the parlor sofa by a most unearthly music. There was one bar of four notes, first and third accepted; bar second, a crescendo on a long swelled note, then a decrescendo equally long.
"Why," she cried, "is that our little bull-calf practising singing? I shall let Barnum know about him. He'll make my fortune!"
Ben knocked at the door, presented a radiant grin, and invited inspection of his Shanghais. Kate went with him to the cellar. There stood two feathered bipeds on their tip-toes, with their giraffe necks stretched up to my sister's swinging shelf where the cream and butter were kept. It spoke well for the size of their craws certainly, that, during the two minutes Ben was away, they had each devoured a "print" of butter, about half a pound!
"Saw ye ever the like o' thae birds, Miss Kathleen?" began Ben, proudly.
"My butter, my butter!" cried Kate.
Ben ran to the rescue, and having removed everything to the high shelf, he came back, saying,—
"It was na their faut. I tak shame for not minding that they are so gay tall. But did ye ever see the like o' yon rooster?"
Indeed, she never had! The frightful monster, with its bob-tail and boa-constrictor neck! But she said nothing.
Ben named them the Emperor and Empress. They were not to be allowed to walk with common fowls, and he soon had a large, airy house made for them. He watched these creatures with incessant devotion, and one morning he was beside himself with delight, for, by a most hideous roaring on the part of the Emperor, and a vigorous cackling, which Ben, very descriptively, called "scraughing," by the Empress, it was announced that she had laid an egg!
Etiquette required Kate to call and admire this promise of royal offspring, and she was surprised into genuine admiration when she saw the prodigy. Her nose had to lower its scornful turn, her lips to relax their skeptical twist. It was an egg indeed! Ben was nobly justified in his purchase. His step was light that day. Kate heard him singing, over and over again, a verse from an old song which he had brought with him from the land o' cakes:—
"I hae a hen wi' a happity leg,
(Lass, gin ye loe me, tell me noo,)
And ilka day she lays me an egg
(And I canna come ilka day to woo!)"
Wooing any lass would, just now, have been quite as secondary an affair with the singer as in the song,—a something par parenthèse.
But, alas! Ben's face was more dubious the next day, and before the week was over it was yard-long. The Empress, after that one great effort, laid no more eggs, but duly began her second duty, sitting. There was no doubt that she meant to have but one chick,—out of rivalry, perhaps, with the Pynchon hen. It was gratifying, perhaps, to have her so aristocratic, but it was not exactly profitable as a speculation.
"Ben," said Kate, dryly, "I don't know that that egg was wonderfully large, as it contained the whole brood!"
Poor Ben! That was not all. The clumsy, heavy Empress stepped upon her egg, and broke it in the second week of its existence; but, faithful to its memory, she refused to forego the duties of maternity, and would persist in staying on her nest. As the season advanced, Ben lost hope of the second brood he had counted upon. In short, his Empress had the legitimate "hen-fever," and it carried her off, though Ben tried numberless remedies in common use for vulgar fowls, such as pumping upon her, whirling her by one leg, tying red flannel to her tail, and so forth. Of course such indignities were fatal to royalty, and Ben gave up all hopes of a pure race of Shanghais.
The Emperor was then set at liberty, and for one short half-hour strutted like a giant-hero among the astounded hens. But no sooner did the former old cock—who had game blood in him, repute said—return from a distant excursion into the cornfields with his especial favorites about him, and behold the mighty majesty of the monster, than his pride and ire blazed up. He put his head low, ruffled out his long neck-feathers, his eyes winked and snapped fire with rage, he set out his wings, took a short run, and, throwing up his spurs with fury, struck the stupid, staring Emperor a blow under the ear which laid him low. Alas for royalty, opposed to force of will!
"And you had to pocket the loss, Kate?" I said.
"It was my gain," she replied. "Ben had always been dictatorial before; but after that, I had only to smile to remind him of his fallibility, and I have been mistress here ever since."
So far had I written when your welcome letter arrived. Kate found me this morning sighing over it, pen in hand, ready to reply. She put on her imperious look, and said she forbade my writing, if I grew gloomy over it. She feared my letters were only the outpourings of a disappointed spirit. Indulgence in grief she considered weak, foolish, unprincipled, and egotistical.
"I can't help being egotistical," I replied, "when I see no one, and am shut up in the 'little world of me,' as closely as mouse in trap. And with myself for a subject, what can my letters be but melancholy?"
"Anybody can write amusing letters, if they choose," said Kate, reckless both of fact and grammar.
"Unless I make fun of you, what else have I to laugh at?"
"Well, do! Make fun of me to your heart's content! Who cares?"
"You promise to laugh with us, and not be offended?"
"I promise not to be offended. My laughing depends upon your wit."
"There is no mirth left in me, Kate. I am convinced that I ought to say with Jacques, ''Tis good to be sad, and say nothing.'"
"Then I shall answer as Rosalind did,—'Why, then, 'tis good to be a post!' No, no, Charlie, do be merry. Or if you cannot, just now, at least encourage 'a most humorous sadness,' and that will he the first step to real mirth."
"I shall never be merry again, Lina, till you let me recall Mr. –.
That care weighs me down, and I truly believe retards my recovery."
"Hush, Charlie!" she said, imperiously.
"Now, dear Kate, do not be obstinate. My position is too cruel. With the alleviation of knowing your happiness secure, I could bear my lot. But now it is intolerable, utterly!"
She was silent.
"You must give me that consolation."
"To say I would ever leave you, Charlie, while you are so helpless, would be to tell a lie, for I could not do it. Mr. – is a civil engineer. He is always travelling about. I should have no settled home to take you to. How can you suppose I would abandon you? Do you think I could find any happiness after doing it? Let us be silent about this."
"I will not, Kate. I am sure, that, besides being a selfish, it would be a foolish thing to submit to you in this matter. I shall linger, perhaps, until your youth is gone, and then have the pang, far worse than any other I could suffer, of leaving you quite alone in the world. Do listen to reason!"
She sat thinking. At last she said, "Well, wait one year."
"That would be nonsensical procrastination. Does not the doctor declare that a year will not better my condition?"
"But he cannot be sure. And I promise you, Charlie, that, if Mr. – asks me then, I will think about it,—and if you are better, go with him. More I will not promise."
"A year from last February, you mean?"—A pause.
"Encroacher! Yes, then."
"And you will write to him to say so?"
"Indeed! That would be pretty behavior!"
"But as you rejected him decidedly, he may form new"–She clapped her hand upon my mouth.
"Dare to say it!" she cried.
I removed her hand, and said, eagerly, "Now, Kate, do not trifle. I must have some certainty that I am not wrecking your happiness. I cannot wait a year in suspense. I am a man. I have not the patience of your incomprehensible sex."
"I have more than patience to support me, Charlie," she whispered. "He insisted upon refusing to take a positive answer then, and said he should return again next spring, to see if I were in the same mind. So be at ease!"
I sighed, unsatisfied.
"I am sure he will come," she said, turning quite away, that I might not dwell upon her warm blush.
"There is Ben with the horse. Are you ready?" she asked, glad to change the subject.
I was always ready for that I had enjoyed the "jaunting-car-r-r" so much, that my sister, resolved to gratify me further, had made comfortable arrangements for longer excursions. I found that I could sit up, if well supported by pillows; and so Kate had her "cabriolet" brought out and repaired.
She had not the least idea of what a cabriolet might be, when she named her vehicle so; but it sounded fine and foreign, and was a sort of witty contrast to the misshapen affair it represented. It was indescribable in form, but had qualities which recommended it to me. It was low, wide-seated, high-backed, broad, and long. The front wheels turned under, which was a lucky circumstance, as Kate was to be driver. Ben could not be spared from his work, and I was out of the question.
We have a horse to match this unique affair, called "Old Soldier,"—an excellent name for him; though, if Kate reads this remark, she will take mortal offence at it. She calls the venerable fellow her charger, because he makes such bold charges at the steep hills,—the only occasions upon which the cunning beast ever exerts himself in the least, well knowing that he will be instantly reined in. Kate has a horror of going out of a walk, on either ascent or descent, because "up-hill is such hard pulling, and down-hill so dangerous!"
Old Soldier can discern a grade of five feet to the mile of either. If I did not know his history, (an old omnibus horse,) I should say he must have practised surveying for years. He accommodates himself most obligingly to his mistress's whims, and walks carefully most of the time, except when he is ambitious of great praise at little cost, when he makes the charges aforesaid.
"He is so considerate, usually!" Kate says; "he knows we don't like tearing up and down hills; but now and then his spirit runs away with him!"—I wish it would some day with us. No hope of it!
We stop every two miles to water the horse, and though we are exceedingly moderate in our donations, we are a fortune to the hostlers. I carry the purse, as Kate is quite occupied in holding the reins, and keeping a sharp look-out that her charger don't run off. Not that he ever showed a disposition that way,—being generally quite agreeable, if we wish him to stand ever so long a time; but Kate says he is very nervous, and he might be startled, and then we might find it impossible to stop him,—a thing easy enough hitherto.
I am obliged to keep the purse in my hand all the time, there being such frequent use for it. Kate says,—
"Give the man a half-dime, Charlie, if you can find one. A three-cent piece looks mean, you know; and a fip mounts up so, it is rather extravagant. That is the twelfth fip that man has had this week, and for only holding up a bucket a half-minute at a time; for Soldier only takes one swallow."
She will pay every time we stop, if it is six times a day.
"Shall I give the man a half-dollar at once," I ask, "and let that do for a week?"
"No, indeed! How mean I should feel, sneaking off without paying!"
When the roadside shows a patch of tender grass, Kate eyes it, and checks Soldier's pace. He knows what that means, and edges toward the tempting herbage.
"Poor fellow!" his driver says,—"it is like our having to pass a plate of peaches. Let him have a bite."
And so we wait while he grazes awhile. It is the same thing when we cross a brook, and Soldier pauses in it to cool his feet and look at his reflection in the water.
"Perhaps he wants a drink. We won't hurry him. We will let him see that we can afford to wait."
If he had not come to that conclusion from the very start, he must have believed human beings were miracles of patience and forbearance.
I could write a fine dissertation upon Kate's foolish fondness and her blind indulgence. I could show that these are the great failings of her sex, and prove how very much more rational my sex would be in like circumstances. But I find it too pleasant to be the recipient of such favors myself just now, to find fault. Wait until I do not need woman's tenderness, and then I'll abuse it famously. I will say then, that she is weak, foolish, imprudent; I will say, she kills with kindness, spoils with indulgence, and all that; but just now I will say nothing.
In one thing I think her kindness very sensible,—she uses no check-rein. I think with Sir Francis Head, that all horses are handsomer with their heads held as Nature pleases. I pity the poor creatures when I see them turning to one side and the other, to find a little relief in change of position. To restrain horses thus, who have heavy loads to pull, is the height of folly, as a waste of power.
You take no interest in these remarks, perhaps; but treasure them. If ever, Cousin Mary, you drive a dray, they will serve you.