Hagar :: :: University of Virginia Library

The grass creeps not so softly nor so soon over
the grave as forgetfulness over the heart. Not
positive forgetfulness, perhaps, but alienation and
indifference. For a time the wing of Death puts
out the sun, and blank, dumb, helpless apathy,
paralyzes the energies of life.

A beloved one—mother, or sister, or child—is
gone, they tell us, gently as may be, and pointing
our thoughts to the heaven where they never are
sick, or weary, and never are parted from dear
ones any more; but what words of comfort may

avail! we feel only the awful separation, and in
that there is all sorrow and all pain.

The locks are combed smooth and the feet
straightened, and strong hands with the mattock
and the spade fashion in an hour the “narrow
house.” Our lips whiten and our hearts stand still,
as our clinging arms are forced away and the
shroud is folded about the ruins of mortality.
Scarcely have we strength to pray.

The clods are over the coffin, and there comes a
sense of relief. We return to our homes; and
whatever belonged to the dead, the chair in which
she sat, the book she read, the bed or the cradle in
which she slept—all are hallowed to us, and for a
while cherished as precious mementos. But day
after day the sunshine falls, and the shadow grows
less and less heavy, the expulsive power of new
interests comes in, the accustomed chair has a new
occupant, new eyes are lingering in the book, and
thenceforth everything is linked with new thoughts.
Other lips pronounce the words of the bards, and
the old tones, that made them music, fade away
from the memory.

So, by little and little, the waves of time widen
between us and the lost, till they become a great
sea, across which our thoughts but now and then
are wafted by some tempest of the heart.

“Oh! what are thousand living loves
To one that cannot quit the dead?”

Thus writes a poet, who should have known
more of the conditions of human feeling. The
dead, if they loved us in life, we can give up; our
souls have been sheltered in their bosoms, the dew
of their garlands has fallen on our brows; we
have been blest, and the blessing is undying in
our recollections of its beauty and sweetness.

And, even if we love without love, and our
heart-yearning is “a voice of music uttered to the
blast, and winning no reply,” what can come
between us so fitly as the grave?

Better for our peace that the soul's melody be
hushed into silence by the hand of death than
that it waken to the touches of another. This
thought, that we are spared the hardest agony of
all to bear, is some mitigation of our wo. It is
the dead to whom we are faithless. Wailing to
ourselves, and with feeble and faltering steps, we
follow the smile that is our heart's star, across all
the wild mountains and waste deserts of life.

A week was gone by, and the blinds were open
again, and the servants busy about the house, arranging
and rearranging, preparing breakfasts and
dinners, nibbling in the pantry, and jesting and
laughing with each other, as though their mistress
were still the presiding genius of the place.

Margaret, as the chief domestic had formerly

been called, had intimated that it would be just as
easy to address her as Mrs. Goodell, which gave
infinite delight to those over whom she had
authority. But the rod she swayed was not of
iron, and though they laughed and took occasions
much oftener than necessary to say “Mrs. Goodell,”
they could not choose but love her, for her severest
reproof was never more than a sweet and subdued
expression of surprise.

If the maid had carelessly overturned the urn of
hot coffee in her lap, she would have only said,
“Why, Mary!” or “How unfortunate!”

The nurse, since she had fully stepped into her
new position, she called for the most part, “My
dear,” and in her most patronizing moods, “My
dear child.”

This was not particularly agreeable to Miss
Crum, who was a woman of some spirit, and she
retained alone the old habit of saying “Margaret.”
She was sure she was not spited at any body for
a wind-fall, though she had never met any good
fortune herself that she did not honestly earn;
but if some persons were disposed to take airs on
themselves, she didn't know as she was bound
at all to recognize and humor their foundationless
pride.

If Mrs. Goodell went out to buy a yard of tape,
she was sure her duties to the baby required her at

home, though some folks had plenty of time to
waste in shopping. If the tea chanced to be weak,
it was never so in Mrs. Wurth's time; if strong,
poor Mr. Wurth would be a ruined man if such
extravagance continued to be indulged. But she
didn't know why she should care; in fact, she
didn't; she was very foolish for saying anything
about it, and almost wished she had neither eyes
nor ears.

In this unamiable state of feeling, she one day
sat in her own room, contemplating, by way of
soothing her feelings, perhaps, though the association
would scarcely be supposed to have that effect,
the worsted dog, now completed and lying on her
knees, when, tapping lightly on the door, but without
waiting an answer, Mrs. Goodell entered. She
was smiling as usual, not graciously, not benignly,
but as though really contented and happy.

The two great trunks containing the black silk
dress, silver spoons, and other valuables, were in
one corner of the room, and with them a band-box,
in a calico sack. Miss Crum didn't care how much
rubbish the housekeeper put in her apartment, and
the housekeeper had been too busy to attend to the
removal of the things till now.

Unloosing from the confinement of its tape-string
the aforesaid calico sack, she took the lid from the
band-box and examined whether the bonnet were

in a good state of preservation, saying it looked just
like poor Mrs. Wurth, and she could see her with
it on. She then rëclosed the box, tied close the
string about the mouth of the sack, and with a
step so light that it seemed to fall on heather, bore
her treasure away to a small upper chamber, called
the servant's spare bedroom. As she passed the
nurse, who chanced to sit in the way, she held it
aside, greatly more than was necessary, that it
might not disarrange her very gracefully disposed
skirts.

“You needn't be afraid of me, Margaret; I
am not poison,” said that dignified and amiable
personage.

“Why, Miss Crum, dear child! I know you are
not poison. If I disturb you, I will not remove
the other things; but I wished to put everything to
rights before tea.”

Miss Crum drew her chair aside, and asked what
was going to happen—curiosity for the moment
getting the better of her ill humor.

“Oh, nothing,” said Margaret; “a gentleman is
coming to tea, that is all.”

“Good heavens! what a great simpleton you
are!” And more than the original spiteful harshness
of the nurse returned, or would have done so,
but for a second thought.

“Why, Araminta Crum!” exclaimed the housekeeper,

and with her customary sweet smile, and
light step, the happy woman bore off the box.

When she returned, Miss Crum expressed herself
delighted that the ugly old trunks were to be taken
away. They harrowed up her feelings, she said,
and made her irritable and nervous; and when
they had been unlocked and seen into a little, as
Mrs. Goodell expressed it, she voluntarily assisted
in removing them into the spare room—a task difficult
of accomplishment, but finished, at last, by
dint of hitching them, with interludes for the recovery
of breath, from step to step up the stairs.

“Do you know who is coming?” asked the nurse,
carelessly.

“Really, child, I did not inquire, but think it's
the doctor. He often takes tea with us of a Wednesday
night.”

“With us!” thought Miss Crum, but she wisely
forebore to speak it, and saying she would prefer
that it were anybody else, skipped into her own
room, with the alacrity of sixteen, and began the
most active preparations.

Meantime Margaret made the rounds of the
house, by way of getting all in perfect order before
the gentlemen should come in.

Sometime previous to the appointed hour Miss
Crum was duly arrayed. Her stiff curls were
drawn out to their greatest length, and as smooth

—as they ever were. The blue ribbons of the cap
were exchanged for white ones, and the black silk
dress for one of pea-green. The lace points of the
petticoat were just the least bit visible, and as she
surveyed herself in the glass an expression of satisfaction
lighted her face that really made her
look quite pretty—“nice as a new pin,” as Margaret
said when, having completed her own toilet, she
came up to hook the pea-green frock.

“Thank you, Mrs. Goodell,” Miss Crum said
when the task was ended, and forthwith began
chattering like a magpie.

She was even more satisfied than before, on seeing
the housekeeper's plain appearance, for Mrs.
Goodell had simply tied on a clean gingham apron,
and made some little effort, useless all, to comb her
thin and faded tresses across the great bald spot
on the top of her head.

“I will just give the baby a few drops of paregoric,”
said the nurse, bending over the cradle
and praising the beautiful black hair of the child,
which she had not noticed before—“for I might
want to stay below a little after tea, one gets so
lonely in one's own room always.”

“Why, Miss Crum, you will not give the baby
laudanum!” and the housekeeper took the vial
from her hands, as she held the teaspoon ready for
the slow and careful dropping. “Dear child, that

will never do. I will come up and take care of
the little darling.” And she fondled it and called it
a thousand pretty names, hugging it close, and
kissing it over and over, as though she had rescued
it from some terrible peril, which, in truth,
she had.

“Children that are well and healthy, like this
precious 'ittle mousey,” here she squeezed the innocent
more tightly than ever, “will sleep enough,
Miss Crum. Oh yes, him sleep enough, don't him?”
here followed another kiss, after which she related
many instances of death or idiocy produced by
giving bad medicines to such infants.

Miss Crum acknowledged the wisdom of her caution,
though she would probably have been highly
indignant at such an invasion of her peculiar province,
but for anticipations of a display of her attractions
to some purpose at the tea-table. As Margaret
laid the child in the cradle, rocking it to and
fro the while with motherly fondness, she said she
had dreamed of cats the night before, and to dream
of any of the feline tribe was one of the worst signs
that could be—indicating danger to some of the
household, and the shedding of many tears.

Miss Crum smiled, little thinking that she would
verify both these bad omens. How could she? for
ere the smile faded the door-bell rang, and leaning
over the banister she saw a gentleman, who inquired

for Mr. Wurth and was shown into the
parlor.

“How are you, Frederick?” and “Ah, Joseph,
glad to see you,” were the familiar and cordial
salutations of the friends.

That Mr. Wurth did not say, “Devilish glad to
see you, Jo,” and that Arnold took the hand of his
friend, instead of slapping him on the shoulder
and calling him Fred, was attributable to the recent
melancholy event in the family, but this was all
the change discernible in the method or manner of
either.

The sorrow, the change, apparently were regarded
but as a vacuum around which to talk. And
Joseph Arnold, as he conversed with his rich, indolent
friend, and glided into his more habitual
feeling and action, could hardly have been recognized
as the person who conversed so gravely and
religiously with the clergyman. In allusion to his
visit, he spoke lightly, and as if he had been
prompted by curiosity rather than any deeper feeling,
calling Mr. Warburton that white neckclothed
fellow who visited the consumptive lady, but adding,
“There are more things in the heaven and
earth of that man's mind than are dreamed of in
the philosophy of most of us.”

At the door of the tea-room Miss Crum appeared,
all smiles, at the precise juncture most appropriate,

and vanished again like the creature of a dream.
A servant was sent for her, but she had a nervous
headache, and begged to be excused.

“Why, Miss Crum!” exclaimed the housekeeper,
as she presently entered the nursery.

For some mysterious cause, the pea-green silk
had been hastily thrown aside, and arrayed in a
long loose gown, and with her face muffled with a
towel, Miss Crum sat, swaying from side to side, as
if repressing by such action some extraordinary emotion.

Noting the preparations for a storm of tears, the
housekeeper wisely and silently withdrew.