 | Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
LIGHT AND SHADE.
The ground-work of life is generally in shadow; the light
glimmers for a little while, here and there, and fades off—for
that the lips we love smile for us no longer, or settle into that
still and placid and fearful smile that no kiss of ours can deepen;
the lids grow weary and droop over the eyes whence fell our
sunshine; and so, as the years pass, the darkness is more dense
and full of melancholy. The blooms drop out of the thorn-tree
and leave it unsightly and bare; the bubbling spring that lay
cool under its white flowers, shrinks away more and more, leaving
but slimy bubbles, and dries up; the hills we saw in the
luxuriant beauty of their summer wealth grow dreary with the
furrows of graves. Life, indeed, is a solemnity and a mystery,
full of anxieties and sufferings, restlessness and weariness; but
it gathers strength amid night and desolation, and receives that
fullness of its beauty, with which it is adorned for going through
the golden gates, in a baptism of fire. Pilgrim! have courage,
for the promise of rest brightens like a chaplet full of dew, and
the withered staff, as the fair towers are approached, breaks
into blossoms; and, maiden, heavy with the anguish of disappointed
hopes! gather from your pallid cheeks the fallen locks,
and wait till the morning; weary and worn and disconsolate!
be patient, and calm, and hopeful, wait till the morning—for as
a child, frightened at the dark, falls tearfully asleep, and wakes
in his mother's arms, are we all—living, and dying, and waking.
Wait till the morning!
It is a great thing to have this hope shining with the steadfast
beauty of a star, away above us and before us—this hope
being in purity and truthfulness as children. But ever and
aside from this, there are other, and earthly hopes, brightly
dear to us. Who, in the sorrowful household of humanity, so
lost in the wild crying of his own heart, or so closed about in
the chill folds of dumb and helpless apathy, that he has not
sometimes risen, equal to the hardest trial, and dashed from
him the power and the presence of evil, as a strong swimmer
the audacious waves!
Among the lights which lie among the shadows of life, the
brightest is love, and the love of little children, perhaps, has the
sweetest shine of all. Of such love I am thinking to-day, or
rather of one such, for it is not of many but of one that I muse
—one being, whose life now is only a beautiful memory, for long
years the dismal autumn rains have beaten down the blossoms
on her grave. We were little girls together—
She was the fairer in the face,
her eyes large and dark, and her lips smiling, though very
faintly always, for she was never mirthful, and never angry;
and this last it is which makes her memory ever a reproach to
me. I knew not how great my love was till she was gone;
but the edges of the grave are steep, and it is not enough to lift
her from the darkness that the arms of my penitence may fold
her as I take her kiss of forgiveness on my forehead for a
crown.
It is June now, and all day the birds sing to her their artless
songs. But the window of her narrow house is covered thick with
dust, and she does not hear. The white violets fringe the green
coverlid that is over her, but her little hands are not unfolded to
gather them any more; and when morning slants rosily over her,
saying, Wake! it is day! she does not start, but with the golden
curls dropping over her still pillow, sleeps on just the same. In
the morning of the resurrection she will wake; and Thou who,
ere the thorns were put off from thy forehead for the glory, didst
take little children in thy arms and bless them, make her
thine angels.
She was seven, and I ten, and I chose for my constant playmate
one two years older than myself, instead of her. She
was gentle and patient, and I wayward and petulant; and
though I loved her, I sometimes vexed and thwarted her. I
atoned, as I fancied, though I now think it was poor atonement,
by making her wreaths of wild flowers or new dresses for her
doll. When I did so, she never failed to receive them just as
kindly as though I had never been ungenerous or ungentle.
As I said, I was three years older than she; and though I
had a thousand wild freaks which her quiet nature never imagined,
I thought her quite too much of a child to be my companion,
and my chief sin was in stealing away from her when I
knew she wished to be with me. Sometimes, indeed, my
chosen friend and I would persuade her to stay at home when
we proposed a ramble in the woods or a visit to some favorite
haunt, with the promise that she should go another time, or
that we would bring her nuts or berries or orchard blossoms,
or whatever chanced to be in season. When we condescended
to do this, she almost always remained behind, reluctantly we
knew, but without opposing her will to ours. And not unfrequently
we told her to go to her own little playhouse; that
something pretty was there; or that some one called her within
doors; and under such false pretences stole away to our
pleasures.
One morning, how well I remember the time! it was late in
November, the woods were all dreary and withered, the huskers
were in the corn-fields gathering the yellow ears and cutting the
stalks, in preparation for the plough, and we could see the teams
of oxen and horses standing patiently here and there, and hear
the rattling, as the full baskets were emptied one after another,
and the barking of the dogs, that, trailing among weeds and
stubble, now startled a wild bird and now a rabbit, with the
halloo and the whistle that set them on. The day was mild for
the time, and the blue haze hung along the edges of the horizon.
The butterflies, blue, and speckled, and yellow, that had
hovered over the streams all the late summer, were gone, and
care—we were going to gather pebbles.
We had made several unsuccessful attempts to get away
from little Jule, for so we called her. She was not well that
morning, and felt more dependent than usual. Children are
not easily deceived; and though once, when she saw us flying
down the green lane, and called after us to stop, we ran back,
saying we were only trying to see how fast we could run, she
seemed still suspicious; and when we sat down, as though we
had no intention of stirring all the day, she hung about our
chairs, and wanted us to tell her stories, or to make her something
pretty, or go with her somewhere. At last my patience
was exhausted, and I said, angrily, “If I were you, I would not
stay where I was not wanted!”
She hung down her head. I saw my advantage, and continued,
though a little softened, “Go to your playhouse and
play, that's a dear girl.”
“No, no,” said Jule; “I want to stay here.”
“You want to stay here, do you? Well, stay, we are going
to the woods.”
This I said in a most unamiable manner—one that brought
tears to her eyes—as she said, “I want to go with you.”
“I thought you said you wanted to stay here, and now you
want to go.”
I knew very well she but wished to do whatever should be
done by us, and so added, “If you want to go to the woods,
why go, and we will stay at home.”
She sat down in her little unpainted chair, and confusedly
pulled the curl out of her long yellow hair.
“You are going to stay here?” I said, and with bonnets hidden
under our aprons, that no one might suspect our intention,
we left the house. We had not gone far, when, looking round
to assure ourselves that our flight was undiscovered—for we
had not asked permission to go—we saw little Jule following.
We ran fast at first, but she almost as fast as we, and so pausing
till she came near, we intimidated her by saying we were
going past the corn-field where the dogs were; that there might
be twenty, for aught we knew; in fact, we expected there were,
We could run faster than she, and get out of reach, and if they
caught her, we could not help it: she had warning.
Her lip trembled, and without wiping away the tears that
gathered to her eyes, or crying audibly, she crossed her hands
before her, and, looking at us reproachfully, suffered us to go
on alone. At first we did so in high glee, but presently conscience
smote me, and, looking back, I saw her standing just
where I had left her. I was half disposed to call her to come
with us. If I had, how many pangs it would have saved me!
but the evil spirit prevailed, and we went on.
There are acts, little and trifling in themselves, which have,
nevertheless, power to haunt us forever; and, like the serpent
in Eden,
“We cannot climb a ring's length against the curse.”
on our lips, the cells of Hybla are filled for us in vain.
Perhaps the childish misdemeanor I have recorded may, in
the mind of the reader, lift the shroud from some pale unconscious
faces, making a dim and shadowy array between him
and the light. Fasting, nor prayer, nor penitence, nor scourge,
may ever wholly lay the ghosts of bad actions. When we
least expect them, they open the doors of our most secret chambers,
and come in.
There were still a few withered flowers on shrunken and
black stalks in the fields. The grass along the streams was
matted and gray; the ripe nuts covered all the ground, and the
squirrels were gathering their winter hoards. Drifts of dead
leaves went cloud-like before the winds, and we pleased ourselves
with hiding in their folds, or gathering them in our arms,
and tossing them wildly upon the sweeping currents of the air.
Then we walked up and down the brooks that only here and
there rippled among the blue stones, which we turned and overturned,
in search of curious pebbles. After this we peeled
great mats of green and yellow mosses from the roots of trees
and decaying logs, partly because they were pretty, and partly as
a carpet for the playhouse of Jule, whom, alone and unhappy,
day grew towards its close.
The sun was low in the west when, with our aprons filled
with moss and pebbles and other such treasures, tired and
hungry, we set out for home. The cattle from the meadows
had preceded us, and the corn-gatherers, with their oxen and
dogs, were all gone. One narrow strip of fiery cloud hung over
the west, but it faded and faded as we went on, unveiling immediately
beneath it, just as we arrived at home, one star, looking
very cold and large, and far away.
We fitted the moss nicely together on the floor of Julia's
playhouse, in alternate parts of green and yellow, as an agreeable
surprise for her, before noticing that in the chamber where
we slept a light was burning—which interested us; but
our curiosity was heightened into positive fear, when through
the little square window from which the white muslin curtain
was blown aside we saw a strange woman, who, in a very
snowy cap, seemed to be bending over the bed. Julia, we
knew, was not well in the morning, and we felt at once the
truth—she was now very ill.
There was a great deal of going in and out of her chamber—
softly, very softly; a little talk, in low tones, and an unpleasant
odor of medicine all over the house. It was some time before
we could be persuaded to go and see her; but at last,
stricken and ashamed, we stood by her bedside. I remember
how her face was burning, under her curls, but she smiled
sweetly, and reaching out her arms to embrace us, said, “I am
so glad you are come, for the dogs you told me of made me
afraid.” Her arms were hot about my neck, as she asked me
if I would take her next time. I readily promised to do so
when she should be well, and told her about the moss we had
brought, and of a thousand things I would do for her when she
recovered.
Every day she grew worse, and scarcely would anything
keep me from the room a single moment. I had learned what
death was, when my grandfather died; the scenes at the old
home by the mill haunted me; I was afraid. I could not eat,
nor sleep, nor rest. Her disease was a fever, very maliguant;
became infected, and was forced away from her. The last
words she ever said to me were, “When I get well, and you
get well, you will take me with you; won't you?” I remember
only faintly, for I know not who it was, of some one coming
to my bedside in the night time, and touching me softly
and startlingly, telling me she was dead. After an interval of a
day or two, they brought the coffin. Perfectly I remember
how she looked. She was smiling, as she smiled in life, and
her hands were crossed on her bosom, just as I had seen them a
thousand times.
The spring had come back ere I went to the woods again—
for violets to plant about her grave. Often I looked to the spot
where I had left her alone in her childish sorrow, but she was
not there. What would I not have given to unsay those harsh
words—what would I not give now!
Years have gone by, and the grave about which I planted the
violets is a long way from me now; but I think of it often, and
never without a shadow falling over my heart. Her life was
short, but she died while splendor was in the morning clouds,
but I, lingering on till the noon is past, have felt all the day's
heat and burden. Away in the distance lies her brief existence,
bordering my own, like a beam of beautiful light; but from her
grave stretches a shadow that would reach me in the uttermost
parts of the world.
| Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West | |