University of Virginia Library

42. CHAPTER XLII.

I had been some little time acquainted with Mrs.
Parshalls before I knew that she had a son—one
only son, who had been married, and was now a
widower with a little boy of his own, an infant of
some three years old, or perhaps not so much. It
was in her longings after this darling grandchild
that she first mentioned her son to me, and from
what she said of her desire to have the child with
her, and of her son's refusal, I came to the conclusion
that Mr. Henry Parshalls was more like his father
than like herself, or he would have allowed the
child to cheer her loneliness at least a part of the
time.

At length Henry came for a visit, and with him
the sweet rosy-cheeked boy, and the poor old
mother was the happiest of the happy. She said
she took “clear comfort,” and no one could doubt
it who saw her with her little grandson in her
arms. To be sure, she rose earlier, and toiled still
harder than before, but the new spring at her heart
lightened all her labors. Little Alfred was always
with her. With the unerring instinct of childhood

he preferred following her steps all day, to enjoying
any of the various temptations offered by his grandfather,
and by virtue of this exclusive preference,
added to his thousand little winning ways, he became
part and parcel of poor Aunty Parshalls' being.
Henry, though he was but a cold son of such a
mother, could not but yield to her entreaties, and
leave the boy with her when he went away.

Soon after this we heard of his marriage. He
had chosen a girl of sixteen, thoughtless and unformed
even more than is usual at that age. From
this time Mrs. Parshalls lived in constant fear lest
her darling would be required of her. But three
months passed away and no word came from Henry,
who lived at some distance, and was not a very attentive
son. By and by a letter was received
announcing that he was about to remove into our
neighborhood, where he owned a piece of land.
The world had gone amiss with him, and he wrote
in poor spirits, scarcely mentioning his young wife,
and indeed saying nothing beyond what was absolutely
necessary. Here was an increase of poor
Aunty's cares and anxieties! Henry had been very
prosperous; so much so that the order of nature
had become reversed in some degree, and his
parents looked up to him—no unusual state of
things where filial reverence is held in small account.
Now the tide had turned, and Henry was
going to try hard work again, with the encumbrance

of a young wife who was reputed to know
nothing whatever of any domestic employment.

They came, and for once rumor was found to
have fallen short of the truth. A more useless little
doll than our new neighbor Mrs. Henry Parshalls
never trod a ducal hall. She was of extreme delicacy
of person, petite to a fault, with wild haught
black eyes, and the air of a woman of fortune.
Her father had been able to give her nothing whatever
in support of these high pretensions, but he
wrote himself “Attorney at Law” in a village
somewhere further West, and, being a widower, had
boarded out with his only child, who had found,
consequently, little or nothing to do.

One ought to have seen Mr. Parshalls senior and
his house, and that good but very odd-looking wife
of his, to imagine any thing of the poor little
daughter-in-law's situation after she became an inmate
of the paternal establishment. She sat on
one of the chests which garnished the sides of the
room, her white hands idly resting in her lap or
listlessly straying among her mazy curls, while she
watched with an aspect of real distress the labors
of poor Aunty. These were of the most primitive
kind; various enough indeed, but all performed
with scarcely more utensils than would have been
invented by our first mother if she had had workmen
at command.

One article in particular which Mrs. Parshalls

called her “dish-kettle,” performed daily a round
of duties which would utterly have confounded
Papin's digester or the “marmite perpetuelle.” It
cooked the potatoes for breakfast, and was then put
on to heat water for washing the dishes. When
this same washing process was about to commence,
the dish-kettle was always hoisted to the table,
since where was the use of wearing out a pan
when the dish-kettle did just as well, and kept the
water hot longer too? By the time the dishes
were washed, it was time to feed the pigs, and
then poor Aunty, being sadly scanted in pails, carried
this heavy iron vessel up the rising ground at
the top of which the pen was placed. Then the
kettle was scoured and put on for dinner. After
dinner came the whole dish-washing process over
again, and then the factotum was cleaned once
more, and put on to heat water for mopping the
floor—a daily ceremony. At this point of the
diurnal round I confess a discrepancy of opinion
between Aunty Parshalls and myself, since I could
never quite like to see the mop going in and out of
the dish-kettle. But as she said in reply to a very
sharp remonstrance of her lady daughter on this
head, “Why! bless your dear soul! I sca-oured
it!” I will answer for it she did, but we all
have our prejudices.

But the dish-kettle is not yet at rest for the
night. It has still, after another “sca-ouring” process,

to cook the supper, wash the dishes, carry the
pigs' mess up the hill, and come home to be
cleaned again in order that the beans may be put
to soak for to-morrow's porridge.

This is one of Mrs. Parshalls' peculiarities, and
it is one which I doubt not will cleave to her as
long as she lives, in spite of many snappish remarks
from her husband, and the undisguised
horror of Mrs. Henry. She says she must do as
she has been used to, and as her mother did before
her, or she should get her work all “out of kelter.”
And whatever may be the judgment of others upon
this coarse estimate of comfort, I am sure neither
of the objectors just mentioned had any right to
say a word, since neither of them ever lifted a
finger to lighten the good woman's labors.

Mrs. Henry's only amusement, and indeed her
only occupation while her husband was building
his house, was playing with little Alfred, whose
heart she won very soon by her attentions, and
whom she seemed really to love. Her prejudice
against his grandmother was very evident. She
had not the sense to value good qualities under so
unattractive an exterior. She was at an age
when with most girls exterior is all, and she
seemed to have been utterly unprepared for finding
her husband's parents so different from himself.
Henry Parshalls had by nature a fine person and a
handsome face; and withal, an air which seems
to come to some people by nature too—a gentlemanly

ease of manner—a repose which is often labored
after in the fashionable world, where it is in
high repute as bespeaking, in the first place, a habit
of entire idleness, and in the next a most dignified
consciousness of one's own importance. A towering
development of self-esteem, and the contagious example
of his worthy father, had done wonders for
Henry; and unexpected success in the world had still
further contributed to give him an exalted estimate of
his own claims. Now, after all that has been hinted
of the characteristics of these two young people, it
cannot be necessary to show how very largely they
drew upon poor Aunty's patience. And yet when
they removed to their new house, she felt that she
would have been willing to endure always this extra
load of toil and vexation for the sake of retaining
the little Alfred. But he was taken home and
made a plaything of by his pretty young mamma,
grandmamma retaining only the privilege of taking
care of his clothes and providing for him in many
respects out of her own scanty supplies.