University of Virginia Library

MRS. WETHERBE'S QUILTING PARTY.

1. I.

Longer than I can remember, my father, who is an old man
now, has been in the habit of driving every Friday morning
from his home, seven miles away, to this goodly city in which
I now live. I may well say goodly city, from the view which
presents itself as I look out from the window under which I
have placed my table for the writing of this history, for my
home is in the “hilly country” that overlooks this Western
Queen, whose gracious sovereignty I am proud to acknowledge,
and within whose fair dominions this hilly country lies.

I cannot choose but pause and survey the picture: the Kentucky
shore is all hidden with mist, so that I try in vain to see
the young cities of which the sloping suburbs are washed by
the Ohio, river of beauty! except here and there the gleam of
a white wall, or a dense column of smoke that rises through
the silver mist from hot furnaces where swart labor drives the
thrifty trades, speeding the march to elegance and wealth. I
cannot see the blue green nor the golden green of the oat and
wheat fields, that lie beyond these infant cities, nor the dark
ridge of woods that folds its hem of shadows along their borders,
for all day yesterday fell one of those rains that would
seem to exhaust the clouds of the deepest skies, and the soaked
earth this morning sends up its coal-scented and unwholesome
fogs, obscuring the lovely picture that would else present itself.

I can only guess where the garrison is. I could not hear

even if the time of challenge were not passed—though long
before the sunrise I woke to the music of the reveille, that
comes morn after morn floating over the waters and through
the crimson daybreak, to chase the dream from my pillow.
Faintly I discern the observatory crowning the summit of the
mount above me, and see more distinctly at its base the red
bricks of St. Philomena, and more plainly still the brown iron
and glittering brass of its uplifted spire, with the sorrowful
beauty of the cross over all; while midway between me and
the white shining of the tower of the cathedral, away toward
the evening star, I catch the dark outline of St. Xavier.

Beautiful! As I said, I cannot choose but pause and gaze.
And now, the mists are lifting more and more, and the sunshine
comes dropping down through their sombre folds to the damp
ground.

Growing, on the view, into familiar shapes, comes out point
after point of the landscape—towers and temples, and forest
and orchard trees, and meadow-land—the marts of traffic and
the homes of men; and among these last there is one, very
pretty, and whose inmates, as you guess from the cream-white
walls, overrun with clematis and jasmine, and the clambering
stalks of roses, are not devoid of some simple refinement of
taste from which an inference of their happiness may be drawn—
for the things we feel are exhibited in the things we do.

The white-pebbled walk, leading from the gate to the doorway,
is edged with close miniature pyramids of box, and the
smoothly-shaven sward is shadowed by various bushes and
flowers, and the gold velvet of the dandelion shines wherever
it will, from the fence close beneath the window sending up its
bitter fragrance out of dew, while sheaves of green phlox stand
here and there, which in their time will be topped with crimson
blossoms.

The windows are hung with snowy curtains, and in one that
fronts the sun, is hung a bird-cage, with an inmate chattering
as wildly as though his wings were free. A blue wreath of
smoke, pleasantly suggestive, is curling upward just now, and
drifting southward from the tall kitchen chimney, and Jenny
Mitchel, the young housewife, as I guess, is baking pies. Nothing
becomes her chubby hands so well as the moulding of
pastry, and her cheerful singing, if we were near enough to

hear it, would attest that nothing makes her more happy. And
well may she sing and be happy, for the rosy-faced baby sits
up in his white willow cradle, and crows back to her lullaby;
and by and by the honest husband will come from healthful
labor, and her handiwork in flour and fruit and sugar and spice,
will be sure of due appreciation and praise.

Nowhere among all the suburban gardens of this basin
rimmed with hills, peeps from beneath its sheltering trees a
cozier home. They are plain and common-sense people who
dwell here, vexed with no indistinct yearnings for the far off
and the unattained—weighed down with no false appreciation,
blind to all good that is not best—oppressed with no misanthropic
fancies about the world—nor yet affected with spasmodic
decisions that their great enemy should not wholly baffle them;
no! the great world cares nothing about them, and they as
little for the great world, which has no power by its indifference
to wound the heart of either, even for a moment. Helph.
Randall, the sturdy blacksmith, whose forge is aglow before the
sunrise, and rosy-cheeked Jenny, his blue-eyed wife, though she
sometimes remembers the shamrock and sighs, have no such
pains concealed.

But were they always thus contented? Did they cross that
mysterious river, whose course never yet run smooth, without
any trial and tribulation, such as most voyagers on its bosom
have encountered since the world began—certainly since Jacob
served seven years for Rachel and was then put off with Leah,
and obliged to serve other seven for his first love? We shall
see: and this brings me back to one of those many Fridays I
have spoken of. I am not sure but I must turn another leaf
and begin with Thursday—yes, I have the time now, it was a
Thursday. It was as bright an afternoon as ever turned the
green swaths into gray, or twinkled against the shadows stretching
eastward from the thick-rising haycocks.

2. II.

It was early in July, when the bitter of the apples began to
grow sweet, and their sunward sides a little russet; when the
chickens ceased from peeping and following the parent hen,
and began to scratch hollows in garden beds, and to fly suddenly
upon fences or into trees, and to crow and cackle with unpractised
throats, as though they were well used to it, and
cared not who heard them, for which disagreeable habits their
heads were now and then brought to the block. Blackberries
were ripening in the hedges, and the soft silk was swaying
beneath the tassels of the corn.

Such was the season when, one day, just after dinner, Mrs.
Wetherbe came to pass the afternoon, and, as she said, to kill
two birds with one stone, by securing a passage to the city
on the morrow in my father's wagon—for many were the old
ladies, and young ones too, who availed themselves of a like
privilege. Of course it was a pleasure for us to accommodate
her, and not the less, perhaps, that it was a favor she had never
asked before, and was not likely to ask again.

She was a plain old lady, whom to look at was to know—
good and simple-hearted as a child. She was born and had
been bred in the country, and was thoroughly a country woman;
her high heeled and creaking calf-skin shoes had never trodden
beyond the grass of her own door-yard more than once or twice,
for even a friendly tea-drinking with a neighbor was to her a
matter of not more than biennial occurrence. And on the day
I speak of she seemed to feel mortified that she should spend
two consecutive days like a gad-about—in view of which necessity
feeling bound in all self-respect to offer apologies.

In the first place, she had not for six years been to visit her
niece, Mrs. Emeline Randall, who came to her house more or
less every summer, and really felt slighted and grieved that
her visits were never returned. So Mrs. Randall expressed
herself, and so Mrs. Wetherbe thought, honest old lady as she
was! and so it seemed now as though she must go and see

Emeline, notwithstanding she would just as soon, she said, put
her head in a hornet's nest, any time, as go to town; for she
regarded its gayeties and fashions—and all city people, in her
opinion, were gay and fashionable—as leading directly toward
the kingdom of the Evil One. Therefore it was, as I conceive,
quite doubtful, whether for the mere pleasure of visiting her
amiable niece, Mrs. Wetherbe would have entered the city
limits.

She wanted some cap stuff and some home-made linen, if
such things were to be procured in these degenerate days, though
if she only had the flax she could spin and weave the linen
herself, old as she was, and would not be caught running about
town to buy it; for, if she did say it, she was worth more than
half the girls now at work; and no one who saw how fast her
brown withered fingers flew round the stocking she was knitting,
would have doubted it at all.

“Nothing is fit for the harvest-field but home spun linen,”
said Mrs. Wetherbe, “and if Wetherbe don't have it he'll be
nigh about sick, and I may jest as well go fust as last, for he
won't hear to my spinning, sence I am sixty odd; he says he
don't like the buz of the wheel, but to me there's no nicer
music.”

The last trowsers of her own making were worn out, and
along for several days past her good man had then been obliged
to wear cloth ones; which fact was real scandalous in the good
woman's estimation, and in this view it certainly was time she
should bestir herself, as she proposed.

Moreover, she had one or two other errands that especially
induced her to go to town. A black calico dress she must have,
as she had worn the old one five years, and now wanted to cut
it up and put it in a quilt, for she always intended it to jine
some patchwork she'd had on hand a long time, and now she
was going to do it, and make a quilting party, and have the
work all done at once. I, of course, received then and there
the earliest invitation.

This was years ago, and the fashion of such parties has long
since passed away, but in due time I will tell you about this,

as you may never have an opportunity of participating in such
a proceeding.

Perhaps you may have seen persons, certainly I have, who
seem to feel called on, from some feeling of obligation I do not
understand, to offer continual apologies for whatever they do,
or propose to do. It was so with good Mrs. Wetherbe, and
after the announcement of this prospective frolic, she talked a
long chapter of whys and wherefores, after this wise.

William Helphenstein Randall, Emeline's oldest son, had
been living at her house three or four years, and he had teased,
month in and month out, to have a wood-chopping and quilting,
some afternoon, and a regular play party in the evening; and
he had done so many good turns for her, that it seemed as if a
body could hardly get round it without seeming reel disobleegin';
and though she didn't approve much of such worldly
carryings on, she thought for once she would humor Helph;
and then, too, they would get wood prepared for winter, and
more or less quilting done—for “though on pleasure she was
bent, she was of frugal mind.”

I remarked that I was under an impression that Mr. Randall
was a man of property, and asked if Helph was out of college.

“Why, bless your heart, no,” said Mrs. Wetherbe, “he
was never in a college, more'n I be this minute; his father is
as rich as Cresus, but his children got all their larnin' in free
schools, pretty much; Helph hasn't been to school this ten
years a'most, I guess. Let me see: he was in a blacksmith's
shop sartainly two or three years before he come to my house,
and he isn't but nineteen now, so he must have been tuck from
school airly. The long and short on't is,” continued the old
lady, making her knitting-needles fly again, “Emeline, poor
gal, has got a man that is reel clos't, and the last time I was
there I most thought he begrudged me my victuals; but I was
keerful to take butter and garden-sass, and so on, enough to
pay for all I got.” And she dropped her work, she was so exasperated,
for though economical and saving in all ways, she
was not meanly stingy. She had chanced to glide into a communicative
mood, by no means habitual to her, and the perspiration
stood in drops on her forehead, and her little black

eyes winked with great rapidity for a minute, before she added,
“And that ain't the worst on't neither, he is often in drink, and
sich times he gits the Old Clooty in him as big as a yearlin'
heifer!”

“Ay, I understand,” I said, “and that is why Helph happens
to live with you.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Wetherbe, resuming her knitting, “that's
why, and it's the why of a good many other things; I don't
know as I ought to talk of things that are none of my business,
as you may say, but my temper gits riled and a'most biles
over the pot, when I think of some things Jinny Mitchel has
telled me: she's their adopted darter, you know; but that
speaking of the pot reminds me that I broke my little dinner
pot last week, and if there will be room for it I want to kerry it
along and get a new leg put in. And so you see,” she concluded,
“I have arrants enough to take me to town;” and she
wiped her spectacles, preparatory to going home, saying the
glasses were too young for her, and she must get older ones to-morrow,
and that was one of the most urgent things, in fact,
that took her to the city. Having promised that I would accompany
her, to select the new dress, and dine with Mrs.
Randall, she took leave, with an assurance of being ready at
six o'clock in the morning, so as not to detain us a grain or
morsel.

3. III.

When morning began to redden over the eastern stars, our
household was astir, and while we partook of an early breakfast,
the light wagon, which was drawn by two smart young
bays, was brought to the door. Baskets, jugs, and other things,
were imbedded among the straw, with which our carriage was
plentifully supplied, and a chair was placed behind the one seat,
for my accommodation, as Mrs. Wetherbe was to occupy the
place beside my father. I have always regarded the occupancy
of the chair, on that occasion, as an example of self-sacrifice
which I should not like to repeat, however beautiful in theory
may be the idea of self-abnegation. But I cannot hope that

others will appreciate this little benevolence of mine, unless
they have ridden eight or more miles, in an open wagon, and
on a chair slipping from side to side, and jolting up and down,
behind two coltish trotters, and over roads that for a part of
the time kept one wheel in the gutter and one in the air.

But I must leave to the imagination the ups and downs of
this particular epoch of my life. Still one star stood, large and
white, above the hills, but the ground of crimson began to be
dashed with gold when we set forward.

Notwithstanding the “rough, uneven ways, which drew out
the miles, and made them wearisome,” these goings to the city
are among the most delightful recollections of my life. They
were to my young vision openings of the brightness of the
world; and after the passage of a few years, with their experiences,
the new sensations that freshen and widen the atmosphere
of thought are very few and never so bright as I had
then.

Distinctly fixed in my mind is every house—its color and
size, and the garden walks and trees with which it was surrounded,
and by which the roadsides between our homestead and
that dim speck we called the city, were adorned; and nothing
would probably seem to me now so fine as did the white walls,
and smooth lawns, and round-headed gate-posts, which then
astonished my unpractised eyes.

Early as we were, we found Mrs. Wetherbe in waiting at her
gate, long before reaching which the fluttering of her scarlet
merino shawl, looking like the rising of another morning, apprised
us of our approach to it.

She had been nigh about an hour watching for us, she said,
and was just going into the house to take off her things, when
she saw the heads of the horses before a great cloud of dust;
and though she couldn't see the color of the wagon, nor a sign
of the critters, to tell whether they were black or white, she
knew right-a-way that it was our team, for no body else druv
such fine horses.

“Here, Mrs. Witherbe, get right in,” said my father, who
was fond of horses, and felt the compliment as much as if
it had been to himself; and it was owing entirely to this that

he said Mrs. Witherbe instead of Mrs. Wetherbe, though I am
not sufficiently a metaphysician to explain why such cause
should have produced such an effect.

Helphenstein, who was chopping wood at the door, called
out, as we were leaving, “Don't forget to ask Jenny to come
to the quilting;” and Mr. Wetherbe paused from his churning,
beneath a cherry-tree, to say, “Good-bye, mother; be careful,
and not lose any money, for it's a hard thing to slip into a pus,
and it's easy to slip out.”

The good woman held up her purse—a little linen bag tied at
one end with a tow string, and pretty well distended at the
other—to assure the frugal husband she had not lost it in
climbing into the wagon; and having deposited it for safe keeping
where old ladies sometimes stow away thread, thimble,
beeswax, and the like, she proceeded to give us particular accounts
of all the moneys, lost or found, of which she ever knew
any thing, and at last concluded by saying she had sometimes
thought her old man a leetle more keerful than there was any
need of; but, after all, she didn't know as he was; and this
was just the conclusion any other loving and true-hearted wife
would have arrived at in reference to any idiosyncrasy pertaining
to her “old man,” no matter what might, could, would or
should be urged on the contrary.

One little circumstance of recent occurrence operated greatly
in favor of the carefulness of Mr. Wetherbe, in the mind of
his very excellent and prudent wife. Helph had lately, in a
most mysterious and unaccountable manner, lost two shillings
out of his trowsers pocket.

“It was the strangest thing ever could have happened,” she
said: “he was coming home from town—Helph was—and he
said, when he paid toll, he just had two shillings left; and he
put it in the left pocket of his trowsers, he said; he said he
knew he had it then, for just as he rode up the bank of the
creek, his horse stumbled, and he heard the money jingle, just
as plain as could be; and when he got home, and went up stairs,
and went to hang up his trowsers before he went to go to bed,
he just thought he would feel in his pocket, and the money
wasn't there! He said then, he thought he might have been

mistaken, and so he felt in the other pocket, he said, and
behold, it was clean gone! And such things make a body feel
as if they could not be too keerful,” observed Mrs. Wetherbe,
“for you might as well look for a needle in a haystack, as for
a dollar once lost. Helph,” she added, “rode back the next
morning as far as the toll-house, and though he kept his eyes
bent on the ground, the search wasn't of no use.” And she
suddenly started, and clapped her hand, not in her pocket, but
where she had deposited her own purse, exclaiming, as she did
so, “Mercy on us! I thought at fust it was gone; and I declare
for it, I am just as weak as a cat, now, and I shall not get over
my fright this whole blessed day.”

“You are a very nervous person,” said my father, and with
him this was equivalent to saying, you are a very foolish woman;
for he had little patience with men or women who make
much-ado-about-nothing; and, venting his irritation by a sudden
use of the whip, the horses started forward, and threw me quite
out of my chair; but the straw prevented me from receiving
any injury, and I gained my former position, while the hands
of Mrs. Wetherbe were yet in consternation in the air.

This feat of mine, and the laughter which rewarded it, brought
back more than the first good-humor of my father, and he
reined in the horses, saying, “They get over the ground pretty
smartly, don't they, Mrs. Wetherbe?”

“Gracious sakes!” she replied, “how they do whiz by things;
it appears like they fairly fly.” The conversation then turned
on the march of improvement; for we had come to the turnpike,
and the rattling of the wheels, and the sharp striking of
the hoofs on the stones, were reminders of the higher civilization
we were attaining, as well as serious impediments to any
colloquial enjoyment.

“A number of buildings have gone up since you were here,”
said my father, addressing the old lady.

“What has gone up where?” she answered, bending her ear
towards him. But failing to notice that she did not reply correctly,
he continued: “That is the old place Squire Gates used
to own; it don't look much as it used to, does it?”

“Yes, la me! what a nice place it is! Somewhere near old
Squire Gates's, isn't it?”

“Yes, he was an old man,” said my father, “when he owned
that place; and near sixty when he married his last wife, Polly
Weaver, that was.”

“Dear me, neighbor, how we get old and pass away! but I
never heard of the old man's death. What kind of fever did
you say he died with?”

“He is dead, then, is he? Well, I believe he was a pretty
good sort of man. I have nothing laid up against him. Do
you know whether he made a will?”

“Who did he leave it to?” inquired the lady, still misapprehending.
“Jeems, I believe, was his favorite, though I always
thought Danel the best of the two.”

“Well, I am glad Jeems has fared the best,” replied my
father; “he was the likeliest son the old man had.”

“Yes,” she said, vaguely, for she had not heard a word this
time.

“What did you say?” asked my father, who liked to have
his remarks answered in some sort.

The old lady looked puzzled, and said she didn't say any
thing; and after a moment my father resumed: “Well, do you
know where the old man died?” And in a tone that seemed
to indicate that she didn't know much of any thing, she inquired,
“What?” and then continued, in a tone of irritation, “I
never saw a wagon make such a terrible rattletebang in my
born days.”

“I asked if you knew where he died?” repeated my father,
speaking very loud.

“Oh no, we did hear once that he had separated from his
wife, and gone back to the old place; folks said she wasn't any
better than she should be; I don't pretend to know; and I
don't know whether he died there, or where he died. I don't
go about much to hear any thing, and I didn't know he was
dead till you told me.”

“Who told you?” asked my father, looking as though she
would not repeat the assertion the second time.

“I said I didn't know it till you told me,” she answered,
innocently; “and I was just about to ask where he died.”

“The devil!” said my father, losing not only all civility, but
all patience too; “I never told you any such thing, Mrs.
Wetherbe. I have not seen you to talk with you any for a
number of years till this morning, when you told me yourself
that the old man was dead; and if I had ever told such a story,
I should remember it.”

“Why,” she interposed, “you will surely remember, when
you think of it. It was just after we passed Squire Gates's
house; and the fever he died with you mentioned too.”

“Good heavens! it was just there you told me; and I had
not heard till that minute of his death. I will leave it to my
daughter here,” he continued, turning to me, who, laughing at
these blunders, was shaken and jolted from side to side, and
backward and forward, and up and down, all the time.

At this juncture, a smart little chaise, drawn by a high-headed
black horse, with a short tail, approached from the
opposite direction. Within sat a white-haired old gentleman,
wearing gloves and ruffles; and beside him, a more youthful
and rather gayly dressed lady. Both looked smiling and
happy; and as they passed, the gentleman bowed low to Mrs.
Wetherbe and my father.

“That is Squire Gates and his wife now!” exclaimed both
at once; and each continued, “It's strange how you happened
to tell me he was dead.”

“Both are right, and both are wrong,” said I, and thereupon
I explained their mutual misunderstanding, and the slightly irritable
feelings in which both had indulged subsided, and ended
in hearty good-humor.

The slant rays of the sun began to struggle through the black
smoke that blew against our faces, for the candle and soap
factories of the suburbs began to thicken, and the bleating of
lambs and calves from the long, low slaughter-houses which
ran up the hollows opposite the factories, made the head sick
and the heart ache as we entered city limits.

Fat and red-faced butchers, carrying long whips, and reining
in the gay horses they bestrode, met us, one after another,

driving back from the market great droves of cattle, that, tired
and half maddened, galloped hither and thither, lashing their
tails furiously, and now and then sharply striking their horns
against each other, till they were forced through narrow passages
into the hot and close pens—no breath of fresh air, nor a
draught of water between them and their doom.

Now and then a little market-cart, with empty boxes and
barrels that had lately been filled with onions, turnips, or radishes,
went briskly by us: the two occupants, who sat on a
board across the front of it, having thus early disposed of their
cargo, and being now returning home to their gardens. Very
happy they looked, with the proceeds of their sales in the
pockets of their white aprons, and not unfrequently also a calf's
head or beef's liver, half-a-dozen pigs' feet, or some similar delicacy,
to be served up with garlics for dinner.

Countrymen who had ridden to market on horseback, were
likewise already returning to their farms. The basket which
had so lately been filled with the yellow rolls of butter, and
covered with the green broad leaves of the plantain, was filled
now, instead, with tea and sugar, with perhaps some rice and
raisins, and possibly a new calico gown for the wife at home.
What a pleasant surprise when the contents of the basket shall
be made known!

After all, the independent yeoman, with his simple rusticity
and healthful habits, is the happiest man in the world. And as
I saw these specimens of the class returning home, with joyous
faces and full baskets, I could not help saying what all the
world should know, if it be true, from its having been pretty
frequently repeated, “When ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be
wise.”

“What is it, darter?” said Mrs. Wetherbe, bending towards
me, for her apprehensions were not very quick.

“I was saying,” I replied, “that the farmers are the happiest
people in the world.”

“Yes, yes, they are the happiest,”—her predilections, of
course, being in favor of her own way of living; “it stands
to reason that it hardens the heart to live in cities, and makes
folks selfish too. Look there, what a dreadful sight!” and she

pointed to a cart filled with sheep and lambs, on the top of which
were thrown two or three calves, with their feet tied together,
and reaching upwards, their heads stretched back, and their
tongues hanging out. “Really, the law should punish such
wicked and useless cruelty,” she said; and I thought and still
think that Mrs. Wetherbe was not altogether wrong.

Men, and the signs of affairs, began to thicken; blacksmiths
were beating iron over their glowing forges, carpenters shoving
the plane, and the trowel of the mason ringing against the
bricks. Men, women, and children hurried to and fro, and
all languages were heard, and all costumes were seen, as if
after a thousand generations, the races were returning to be
again united at Babel.

“What a perfect bedlam!” said Mrs. Wetherbe; “I wish to
mercy I was ready to go home. Here, maybe, you had better
wait a little,” she added, seizing the rein, and pointing in the direction
of a grocery and variety shop, where some crockery appeared
at the window, and a strip of red flannel at the door.

“Don't you want to go down town?” said my father, reining
up.

“Yes,” she replied, “but I see some red flannel here, and I
want to get a few yards for a pettikit.”

Having assured her she could get it anywhere else as well,
she consented to go on, fixing the place in her mind, so that she
could find it again, if necessary; and we shortly found ourselves
at Mr. Randall's door.

4. IV.

“We will just go in the back way,” said Mrs. Wetherbe;
“I don't like to ring the bell, and wait an hour;” and accordingly
she opened a side door, and we found ourselves in the
breakfast-room, where the family were assembled.

“Why, if it isn't Aunty Wetherbe!” exclaimed a tall, pale-faced
woman, coming forward and shaking hands. “Have you
brought me something good?” she added quickly, at the same
time relieving the old lady of the basket of nice butter, the jug
of milk, the eggs, and the loaf of home-made bread, which she

had brought—partly from the kindness of her heart, partly to
secure her welcome. Thus relieved of her burdens, she went
forward to the table—for Mr. Randall did not rise—and offered
her hand.

“Lord-a-mighty, woman, I didn't know you,” he said, in a
blustering way; but he evidently didn't wish to know her.
“Who the devil have you brought with you?” referring to me,
with a nod of the head, and bending a pair of grayish blue eyes
on me.

This salutation was not particularly calculated to make me
feel happy, or at home, for I was young and timid; but removing
myself from the range of his glance, I deliberately surveyed
the group, with each of whom I felt myself acquainted, in a
moment, as well as I wished to be in my life time.

Mr. Randall, having inquired who I was, in the peculiarly
civil manner I have stated, remarked to his relation, that half
the town was on his shoulders, and he must be off; he supposed
also she had enough to do in her little sphere, and would probably
have gone home before his return to dinner; so, having
wrung her hand, and told her she must come and stay six months
at his house some time, he departed, or rather went in to the ad
joining room, whence after a rattling of glasses and a deep-drawn
breath or two, he returned, wiping his lips, and said to the old
lady in a quick, trembling, querulous tone, and as though his
heart were really stirred with anxiety, “Satan help us, woman!
I almost forgot to ask about my son—how is Helph? how is
my son, Helph?”

His paternal feelings were soon quieted, and turning to his
wife, who had resumed her seat at the table, with hair in papers,
and dressed in a petticoat and short-gown, he said, “Emeline,
don't hurry up the cakes too fast; I don't want dinner a minute
before three o'clock,” and this time he really left the house.
Besides Mrs. Randall, there were at the table two little boys,
of ten and eight, perhaps; two big boys of about fourteen and
sixteen: and a girl of fifteen, or thereabouts. “Oh,” said one
of the larger boys, as if now first aware of the presence of his
aunt, and speaking with his mouth full of food, “Oh, Miss Malinda
Hoe-the-corn, how do you do? I didn't see you before.”

Of course the good woman was disconcerted, and blushed, as
perhaps she had not done since her worthy husband asked her
if she had any liking for his name—more years ago than she
could now remember.

Observing this, the rude fellow continued, “Beg pardon: I
thought it was Malinda Hoe-the-corn, but it's my sweetheart,
Dolly Anne Matilda Steerhorn, and she's blushing, head and
ears, to see me.” And approaching the astonished and bewildered
woman, he began to unpin her shawl, which was of an old
fashion, saying, as he attempted to pass his arm around her
waist, “Get up, my love, and let's have a waltz; come, take off
your hoss-blanket.”

But she held her shawl tightly with one hand, thrusting the
impudent fellow away with the other, as she exclaimed, “Get
along with you, you sassy scrub!”

“That is right, Aunty Wetherbe,” said the mother, “he is
a great lubbersides, and that is just what he is;” but she
laughed heartily, and all the group, with the exception of the
little girl, seemed to think he was behaving very funnily; and
in his own estimation he was evidently displaying some very
brilliant qualities, and had quite confounded a simple-minded
old woman with his abundant humor, and unembarrassed manners.
“Well,” he continued, no whit disconcerted by the displeasure
of his aunt, “I am a business man, and must leave
you, my dear, but I'll bring my wedding coat and the parson to-night,
and an orange flower for you.”

There was now an opportunity for the older brother to exhibit
some of his accomplishments, and the occasion was not to
be slighted; so, after having inquired what news was in the
country, how the crops were, &c., he said, “I am sorry, aunt,
that I have such a complication of affairs on hand that I can't
stay and entertain you, but so it is: you must come round to
my house and see my wife before you return home.”

“Mercy sakes!” she cried, adjusting her spectacles to survey
the youth, “you can't be married?”

“Why, yes,” he replied, “haven't you heard of it? and I
have a boy six munts old!”

“Well, I'd never have thought it; but you have grown all

out of my knowledge, and I can hardly tell which one you be;
in fact, I would not have known you if I had met you any place
else; and yet I can see Emeline's looks in you.”

“That is what everybody says,” replied the youth; “I look
just like my mammy;” for, fancying it would seem boyish to
say mother, he addressed her in a half mock, half serious way,
as “mammy.”

“And so you have to go away to your work, do you?” resumed
the credulous woman: “what kind of business are you
doing here?”

“I am a chicken fancier,” he replied: “Got any Polands or
Shanghais out your way?”

“I don't know,” answered Aunt Wetherbe, unobservant of
the tittering about the table.

“I'd like to get some white bantams for my wife and baby;”
and the facetious nephew closed one eye and fixed the other on
me.

“What do you call the baby?”

“My wife wants to call him for me, but I don't like my own
name, and think of calling him Jim Crow.”

“Now just get along with you,” the mother said, “and no
more of your nonsense.”

He then began teasing his mammy, as he called her, for
some money to buy white kid gloves, saying he wanted to take
his girl to a ball. “Then you have just been imposing upon
me,” said Mrs. Wetherbe; to which the scapegrace replied, that
he hadn't been doing nothing shorter; and, approaching the
girl, who was quietly eating her breakfast, he continued, taking
her ear between his thumb and finger, and turning her head to
one side, “I want you to iron my ruffled shirt fust rate and
particular, do you hear that, nigger waiter?”

After these feats he visited the sideboard, after the example
of his father, and having asked his mother if she knew where
in thunder the old man kept the dimes, adjusted a jaunty cap
of shining leather to one side and left the house.

“I am glad you are gone,” said the girl, looking after him
and speaking for the first time.

“Come, come, you just tend to your own affairs, Miss Jenny,

and finish your breakfast some time before noon,” said Mrs.
Randall, putting on a severe look.

“I had to wait on the children all the time you were eating,”
she replied, rising from the table with glowing cheeks.

“Oh, you had to wait on great things!” the woman said,
tartly: “big eaters always want some excuse.”

Not till the two little boys had demolished the last remnants
of what seemed to have been but a “spare feast” in the first
place, was the bell rung for Aunt Kitty, the colored woman
who presided over the kitchen. She was one of those dear old
creatures whom you feel like petting and calling “mammy”
at once. She was quiet, and a good heart shone out over her
yellow face, and a cheerful piety pervaded her conversation.
She retained still the softness of manner and cordial warmth
of feeling peculiar to the South; and added to this was the
patient submission that never thought of opposition.

She had lived nearly fifty years, and most of them had been
passed in hard labor; but notwithstanding incessant toil, it
seemed to me that she was still pretty. True, she possessed
few of the attributes which, in the popular estimation, make up
beauty; neither symmetry of proportions, fairness of complexion,
nor that crowning grace of womanhood, long, heavy, and
silken tresses. No, her face was of a bright olive, and her hair
was concealed by a gorgeous turban, and I suspect more beautiful
thus concealed, but her teeth were sound, and of sparkling
whiteness, and her eyes black as night, and large, but instead
of an arrowy, of a kind of tearful and reproachful expression;
indeed, in all her face there was that which would have seemed
reproachful, but for the sweetly-subduing smile that played
over it. She was short and thick-set, and as for her dress, I
can only say it was cleanly, for in other respects it was like
that of the celebrated priest who figures in the nursery rhyme,
“all tattered and torn.” As for her slippers, they had evidently
never been made for her, and in all probability were
worn out before they came into her possession; but her feet
were generally concealed by the long skirt of her dress, a
morning wrapper of thin white muslin, past the uses of her
mistress, who, be it known, gave nothing away which by any

possibility could be of service to herself. To adapt it to her
work, Aunt Kitty had shortened the sleeves and tucked up the
skirt with pins; but the thinness of the fabric revealed the
bright red and blue plaids of the worsted petticoat, making her
appearance somewhat fantastic. Courtesying to us gracefully
as she entered the breakfast-room, she proceeded to remove
the dishes.

“Why don't you take a bite first yourself?” asked Mrs.
Randall.

“No matter about me,” she said; “I want to guv these ladies
a cup of coffee—they are come away from the country, and
must feel holler-like—thank de Lord, we can 'suscitate 'em;”
and with a monument of dishes in her hands she was leaving
the room, when Mrs. Randall asked, in no very mild tones, if
she considered herself mistress of the house; and if not, directed
her to wait till she had directions before she went to
wasting things by preparing a breakfast that nobody wanted;
when turning to us, she said, a little more mildly, but in a way
that precluded our acceptance, “You breakfasted at home, I
suppose?”

Poor Aunt Kitty was sadly disappointed, but consoled herself
with the hope that we should return to dinner. Mrs. Randall,
however, said nothing about it.

Jenny, a pretty rosy-faced Irish girl, Mrs. Randall told us was
her adopted daughter; and certainly we should never have
guessed it, had she failed of this intimation.

“I do by her just as I would by my own child,” said the lady;
“and for her encouragement, I give her three shillings in money
every week to buy what she likes.”

“You can well afford it, she must be a great deal of help to
you,” Mrs. Wetherbe said.

But Mrs. Randall affirmed that she was little assistance to
her, though she admitted that Jenny did all the sewing for the
family, the chamber-work, tending at the door, and errands.

From my own observation, in a single hour, I felt assured
that the girl's situation was any thing but desirable: called on
constantly by all the members of the family to do this thing or
that,—for having no set tasks, it was thought she should do

every thing, and be responsible for all the accidents of all the
departments. “Here, Jenny,” called one of the little boys, who
were no less accomplished in their way than the older brothers,
“black my shoes, and do it quick, too,”—at the same time throwing
a pair of coarse brogans roughly against her.

“I haven't time,” she answered “you must do it yourself.”

“That's a great big lie,” said the boy; and prostrating himself
on the floor, he caught her skirts and held her fast, while he
informed us that her father was nobody but an old drunkard,
and her mother was a washerwoman, and that Jenny had better
look at home before she got too proud to black shoes.

“Let me go,” said she; “if my father is a drunkard, yours
is no better,”—and she vainly tried to pull her dress away from
him, her face burning with shame and anger for the exposure.

“Jenny!” called Mrs. Randall from the head of the stairs,
“Come along with you and do your chamber-work.”

“Franklin is holding me, and won't let me come,” she answered;
but the woman repeated her order, saying she would
hear no such stories.

“It's pretty much so!” called out Mrs. Wetherbe, “it's pretty
much so, Emeline.” But as she descended, the boy loosened
his hold, and of course received no blame, and the poor girl had
a slap on the ear with on admonition to see now if she could do
her work.

“Sissy,” said Aunt Kitty, putting her head in the door, “can't
you just run, honey, and get me a cent's worth of yeast?”

Meantime Mrs. Wetherbe had asked Jenny to pass a week at
her house, assist in preparations for the quilting party and enjoy
it; but she feared to ask liberty, and the kind old woman
broke the matter to Mrs. Randall, and I seconded the appeal.

“She has no dress to wear,” urged the mistress.

“Then she ought to have,” responded the old lady, with spirit.

“I have money enough to get one,” said Jenny, bashfully;
“can't I go with these ladies and get it?”

But Mrs. Randall said she had been idling away too much
time to ask for more, and she enumerated a dozen things that
should be done. However, Mrs. Wetherbe and I combated the
decision, and volunteered our assistance, so that reluctant permission

to go out with us was granted. Gratitude opened Jenny's
heart, and as we hastened our work she confided to me
many of her trials and sorrows, and I soon perceived that the
three shillings per week made all her compensation, with the exception
of now and then an old pair of gloves or a faded ribbon,
cast off by her mistress. It was true her father was a drunkard,
and her mother, a poor weakly woman, had six children to provide
for. Jenny gave almost all her own earnings for their support.
“They have pretended to adopt me as a child,” she said,
“that they may seem liberal to me; but I am, as you see, an
underling and a drudge.”

My heart was pained for her as I saw the hardness and hopelessness
of her fate; and when at last she was ready to go with
us, the poor attempt she made to look smart really had the effect
of rendering her less presentable than before; but between
her palm and her torn glove she had slipped two dollars in
small change, and she was quite happy. Then, too, the new
dress should be made in womanly fashion, for she was in her
fifteenth year.

We were just about setting out when, with more exultation
than regret in her tone, Mrs. Randall called Jenny to come back,
for that her little brother wanted to see her.

“Oh dear!” she said, turning away with tears in her eyes;
and in that exclamation there was the death of all her hopes.

We soon saw how it was: the miserable little wretch was
come for money, and without a word, Jenny removed the glove
and gave him all.

“Don't wait to blubber,” said the mistress; “you have lost
time enough for one day;” and the girl retired to exchange her
best dress and renew her work.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Randall had belonged to the poorest class
of people, and the possession of wealth had increased or given
scope to their natural meanness, without in the least diminishing
their vulgarity.

If there be any condition with whom I really dislike to come
in contact, it is the constitutionally mean and base-mannered who,
accidentally or by miserly plodding, become rich. You need but a
glimpse of such persons, or of their homes, to know them. No

expenditures in laces, silks, jewelry, costly carpets, or rare
woods, can remove them one hand's breadth from their proper
position; and the proper position of the Randalls was that of the
menials over whom their money alone gave them supremacy.

We were a long time in getting through our many errands,
for Mrs. Wetherbe was detained not a little in surprise or admiration
at this or that novelty. When a funeral passed, she
could not think who could be dead, and essayed all her powers
to get a glimpse of the coffin, that she might know whether it
were a child or an adult; or if a horseman cantered past, she gazed
after him, wondering if he was not going for the doctor, and if
he was, who in the world could be sick; and then, she selected
little samples of goods she wished to purchase, and carried them
up to Emeline's, to determine whether they would wash well;
but notwithstanding her frugality and cautiousness, she was not
mean; and she lightened her purse on Jenny's behalf to the
amount of the stuff for a pretty new dress. But she could not
be spared for a week, and it was agreed that Helph should be
sent to bring her on the day of the quilting; and so, between
smiles and tears, we left her.

Alas for Aunt Kitty! nothing could alleviate her disappointment:
she had prepared dinner with special reference to us, and
we had not been there to partake of it, or to praise her. “Poor
souls! de Lord help you,” she said; you will be starved a'most!”

Mrs. Randall was sorry dinner was over, but she never thought
of getting hungry when she was busy.

It was long after nightfall when, having left our friend and her
various luggage at her own home, we arrived at ours; and we
had earned excellent appetites for the supper that waited us.

5. V.

That going to town by Mrs. Wetherbe, as I have intimated,
was chiefly with a view to purchases in preparation for the proposed
quilting party and wood-chopping. Not only did we select
calico for the border of the quilt, with cotton batting and spool
thread, but we also procured sundry niceties for the supper,

among which I remember a jug of Orleans molasses, half a
pound of ground ginger, five pounds of cheese, and as many
pounds of raisins. Mrs. Wetherbe had never made a “frolic”
before, she said, and now she wouldn't have the name of being
near about it, let it cost what it would. And great excitement
ran through all the neighborhood so soon as it was known what
she had been about, and rumor speedily exaggerated the gallon
of molasses into a dozen gallons, the raisins into a keg, and so
on. Many thought it was not very creditable in a “professor”
to have such carryings on; some wondered where she would find
any body in Clovernook good enough to ask; others supposed
she would have all her company from the city; and all agreed
that if she was going to have her “big-bug” relations, and do
her “great gaul,” she might, for all of them. The wonder was
that she didn't make a party of “whole cloth,” and not stick her
quilt in at all.

There was a great deal of surmising and debating likewise as
to the quilt itself; and some hoped it was a little nicer than any
patchwork they had seen of Mrs. Wetherbe's making. But this
unamiable disposition gradually gave way when it was known
that the frolic would embrace a wood-chopping as well as a quilting—“for
surely,” said they, “she don't expect chaps from
town to cut wood!”

The speculation concerning the quilt began to decline; what
matter whether it were to be composed of stars or stripes, “rising
suns,” or “crescents?” Mrs. Wetherbe knew her own business
of course, and those who had at first hoped they would not
be invited, because they were sure they would not go if they
were, wavered visibly in their stout resolves.

From one or two families in which the greatest curiosity
reigned, were sent little girls and boys, whose ostensible objects
were the borrowing of a darning-needle or a peck measure from
the harmless family who had become the centre of interest,
but their real errands were to see what they could see. So the
feeling of asperity was gradually mollified, as reports thus obtained
circulation favoring the neighborly and democratic character
hitherto borne by the Wetherbes. At one time the good
old lady was found with her sleeves rolled back, mixing bread,

as she used to do; and invariably she inquired of the little
spies how affairs were going forward at their homes. After
all, the neighbors began to think the quilting was not going to
be any such great things more than other quiltings. For
myself, I understood the whole subject pretty well from the
beginning.

One morning as I looked up from the window where I sat, I
saw Helphenstein Randall approaching, and at once divined his
errand. He was mounted on Mr. Wetherbe's old roan mare,
and riding a side-saddle; and he was in excellent spirits too, as
I judged from his having the ragged rim of his hat turned up
jauntily in front, and from his goading the beast with heels and
bridle-rein; but not a whit cared the ancient mare; with youth
she had lost her ambition, and now she moved in slow and graceless
way, her neck bent downward, and her nose greatly in advance
of her ears. Half an hour afterwards I was on the way to
assist in preparations for the approaching festivities. But I was
only a kind of secondary maid of honor, for foremost on all occasions
of this kind was Ellen Blake, and in this present instance
she had preceded me, and with hair in papers, and sleeves
and skirt tucked up, she came forth in an at-home-attire, mistress-of-the-house
fashion, to welcome me—a privilege she always
assumed toward every guest on such occasions.

In truth, Ellen really had a genius for managing the affairs
of other people, and for the time being she felt almost always the
same interest in whatever was being done as though it were altogether
an affair of her own. She was also thought, in her
neighborhood, which was a sort of suburb of Clovernook, a full
quarter of the way to the city, to be very good company, and
it is no wonder that her services were much in demand. Very
ambitious about her work was Ellen, and few persons could get
through with more in a day than she; in fact there are few more
faultless in nearly every respect; nevertheless, there was one objection
which some of the most old-fashioned people urged against
her—she was dressy, and it was rumored just now that she had
got a new “flat,” trimmed as full as it could stick of blue ribbons
and red artificial flowers, and also a white dress, flounced half
way up to the skirt.

Already the quilt was in the frames and laid out, as the marking
was called, the chamber was ready for the guests, and Ellen
said she thought she had been pretty smart—if she did say it
herself.

“I wanted to take the bed out of my front room and have
the quilting there,” Mrs. Wetherbe observed, “but this headstrong
piece (pointing to Ellen) wouldn't hear of it.”

“No, indeed,” replied the girl; “it would have been the
greatest piece of presumption in the world; la, me! if we young
folks cut up as we do sometimes, we'd have that nice carpet in
doll-rags, and then the work of taking down and putting up the
bedstead—all for nothing, as you may say.”

I fully agreed that Ellen had made the wisest arrangement.
The chamber was large, covering an area occupied by three rooms
on the ground floor; and being next to the roof, the quilt could
be conveniently attached to the rafters by ropes, and thus drawn
up out of the way in case it were not finished before nightfall.
The ceilings were unplastered, and on either side sloped within
a few feet of the floor, but the gable windows admitted a sufficiency
of light, and there was neither carpet nor furniture in the
way, except, indeed, the furnishing which Ellen had contrived for
the occasion, consisting chiefly of divans, formed of boards and
blocks, which were cushioned with quilts and the like. Besides
these, there were two or three barrels covered over with tablecloths
and designed to serve as hat-stands. There was no other
furniture, unless the draperies, formed of petticoats and trowsers,
here and there suspended from pegs, might be regarded as
entitled to be so distinguished.

The rafters were variously garnished, with bags of seeds,
bunches of dried herbs, and hanks of yarn, with some fine specimens
of extra large corn, having the husks turned back from
the yellow ears and twisted into braids, by which it was hung
for preservation and exhibition. One more touch our combined
ingenuity gave the place, on the morning of the day guests
were expected, and this consisted of festoons of green boughs
and of flowers.

While we were busy with preparations in the kitchen, the day
following my arrival, Mrs. Randall suddenly made her appearance,

wearing a faded dress, an old straw bonnet, and bearing in
one hand a satchel, and in the other an empty basket.

“Hi ho! what brought you, mother?” exclaimed Helph, who
was watching our progress in beating eggs, weighing sugar,
crushing spices, &c.; and this question was followed with
“Where is Jenny?” and “How did you come?”

We soon learned that she had arrived in a market wagon, for
the sake of economy; that her basket was to carry home eggs,
butter, apples, and whatever she could get; and that, though
she proposed to assist us she would in fact disconcert our arrangements,
and mar our happiness. Jenny was left at home
to attend the house, while she herself recruited and enjoyed a
little pleasuring.

No sooner had she tied on one of Mrs. Wetherbe's checked
aprons and turned back her sleeves, than our troubles began;
of course she knew better than we how to manage every thing, and
the supper would not do at all, unless prepared under her direction.
We were glad when Mrs. Wetherbe said, “Too many
cooks spoil the broth, and I guess the girls better have it their
own way.” But Mrs. Randall was not to be dissuaded; she
had come to help, and she was sure she would rather be doing a
little than not. She gave accounts of all the balls, dinners, and
suppers, at which she had been, and tried to impress us with the
necessity of having our country quilting as much in the style
of them as we could.

“We must graduate our ginger-cakes,” she said, “and so form
a pyramid for the central ornament of the table; the butter
must be in the shape of pineapples, and we must either have no
meats, or else call it a dinner, and after it was eaten, serve round
coffee, on little salvers, for which purpose we should have pretty
china cups.”

I knew right well how ludicrous it would be to attempt the
twisting of Aunt Wetherbe's quilting and wood-chopping into a
fashionable party, but I had little eloquence or argument at command
with which to combat the city dame's positive assertions
and impertinent suggestions.

“Have you sent your notes of invitation yet?” she asked.

“No, nor I don't mean to send no notes nor nothing,” said

the aunt, a little indignant; “it ain't like as if the queen was
going to make a quilting, I reckon.”

But without heeding this pretty decisive answer Mrs. Randall
proceeded to remark that she had brought out some gilt-edged
paper and several specimen cards, among which she thought
perhaps the most elegant would be, “Mr. and Mrs. Wetherbe
at home,” specifying the time, and addressed to whoever should
be invited. But in vain this point was urged; the old-fashioned
aunt said she would have no such mess written; that Helph
might get on his horse and ride through the neighborhood and
ask the young people to come to the quilting and wood-chopping,
and that was enough.

There was but one thing more to vex us, while anticipating
the result of our efforts—a rumor that Mrs. Wetherbe had hired
a “nigger waiter” for a week. Many did not and could not believe
it, but others testified to the fact of having seen the said
waiter with their own eyes.

With all our combined forces, preparations went actively
forward, and before the appointed day every thing was in readiness—coffee
ground, tea ready for steeping, chickens prepared
for broiling, cakes and puddings baked, and all the extra saucers
filled with custards or preserves.

Ellen stoutly maintained her office as mistress of the ceremonies;
and Mrs. Randall took her place as assistant, so that mine
became quite a subordinate position, for which I was not sorry,
as I did not feel competent to grace the elevated position at first
assigned me.

Helph had once or twice been warned by his mother that Jenny
would not come, and that he need not trouble himself to go for
her; but he persisted in a determination to bring her; in fact
his heart was set on it; and the aunt seconded his decision in
the matter, as it was chiefly for Helph and Jenny she had designed
the merry-making, and she could not and would not be
cheated of her darling purpose.

“Well, have your own way and live the longer,” said the mother;
to which the son answered that such was his intention;
and accordingly, having procured the best buggy the neighborhood
afforded, and brushed his coat and hat with extra care, he

set out for the city, before sunrise, on the long anticipated day.
Dinner was served earlier than usual, and at one o'clock we were
all prepared—Mrs. Wetherbe in the black silk she had had for
twenty years, and Ellen in her white flounced dress, with a comb
of enormous size, and a wreath of flowers above her curls; but
when “Emeline” made her appearance, neither our surprise nor
a feeling of indignant disappointment could be concealed: she
had appropriated to her own use Jenny's new dress, which Mrs.
Wetherbe had bought expressly for this occasion.

“Now you need n't scold, Aunt Wetherbe,” she said; “it
was really too pretty a thing for that child; and besides, I intend
to get her another before long.”

“Humph!” said the old lady, “every bit and grain of my
comfort 's gone,” and removing her spectacles she continued silently
rubbing them with her apron, till Ellen, who was standing
at the window, on tip toe, announced that Jane Stillman was
coming “with her changeable silk on.”

And Jane Stillman had scarcely taken off her things when Polly
Harris was announced. She wore a thin white muslin, and a
broad-rimmed Leghorn hat, set off with a profusion of gay ribbons
and flowers, though she had ridden on horseback; but in
those days riding-dresses were not much in vogue, at least in
the neighborhood of Clovernook.

Amid jesting and laughter we took our places at the quilt,
while Ellen kept watch at the window and brought up the new
comers—sometimes two or three at once.

Mrs. Wetherbe had not been at all exclusive, and her invitations
included all, rich and poor, maid and mistress, as far as
she was acquainted. So, while some came in calico gowns, with
handkerchiefs tied over their heads, walking across the fields, others
were attired in silks and satins, and rode on horseback, or
were brought in market wagons by their fathers or brothers.

Along the yard fence hung rows of side-saddles, and old work
horses and sleek fillies were here and there tied to the branches
of the trees, to enjoy the shade, and nibble the grass, while the
long-legged colts responded to calls of their dams, capering
as they would.

Nimbly ran fingers up and down and across the quilt, and

tongues moved no less nimbly; and though now and then glances
strayed away from the work to the fields, and suppressed titters
broke into loud laughter, as, one after another, the young men
were seen with axes over their shoulders wending towards the
woods, the work went on bravely, and Polly Harris soon called
out, clapping her hands in triumph, “Our side is ready to `roll.”'

Ellen was very busy and very happy, now overseeing the
rolling of the quilt, now examining the stitching of some young
quilter, and now serving round cakes and cider, and giving to
every one kind words and smiles.

“Oh, Ellen,” called a young mischief-loving girl, “please let
me and Susan Milford go out and play;” and forthwith they
ran down stairs, and it was not till they were presently seen
skipping across the field with a basket of cakes and a jug of
cider, that their motive was suspected, and then, for the first time
that day, gossip found a vent.

“I'd be sorry,” said Mehitable Worthington, a tall, oldish girl,
“to be seen running after the boys, as some do.”

“La, me, Mehitable,” answered Ellen, who always had a good
word for everybody, “it ain't every one who is exemplary like
you, but they are just in fun, you know; young wild girls, you
know.”

“I don't know how young they be,” answered the spinster,
tartly, not much relishing any allusion to age, “but `birds of
a feather flock together,' and them that likes the boys can talk
in favor of others that likes them.”

“Why, don't you like them?” asked Hetty Martin, looking
up archly.

“Yes, I like them out of my sight,” answered Mehitable,
stitching fast.

Upon hearing this, the dimples deepened in Hetty's cheeks,
and the smile was as visible in her black eyes as on her lips.

“I suppose you wish you had gone along,” said Mehitable
maliciously, “but I can tell you the young doctor is not there;
he was called away to the country about twelve o'clock, to a
man that took sick yesterday.” Hetty's face crimsoned a little,
but otherwise she manifested no annoyance, and she replied,
laughingly, that she hoped he would get back before night.

Mehitable was not thus to be baffled, however; her heart was
overflowing with bitterness, for he whom she called the young
doctor was, in her estimation, old enough to be a more fitting
mate for herself than for Hetty, her successful rival; and no
sooner was she foiled in one direction than she turned in another,
revolving still in her mind such sweet and bitter fancies.
“I guess he is no such great things of a doctor after all,” she
said; and elevating her voice and addressing a maiden on the
opposite side of the quilt, she continued, “Did you hear, Elizabeth,
about his going to visit Mrs. Mercer, and supposing her attacked
with cholera, when in a day or two the disease fell in her
arms?”

This effervescence was followed by a general laughter, during
which Hetty went to the window, apparently to disentangle her
thread; but Ellen speedily relieved her by inviting her to go
with her below and see about the supper.

“I should think,” said Elizabeth, who cordially sympathized
with her friend, “the little upstart would be glad to get out of
sight;” and then came a long account of the miserable way in
which Hetty's family lived; “every one knows,” they said, “her
father drinks up every thing, and for all she looks so fine in her
white dress, most likely her mother has earned it by washing or
sewing: they say she wants to marry off her young beauty, but
I guess it will be hard to do.”

When Hetty returned to the garret, her eyes were not so
bright as they had been, but her subdued manner made her only
the prettier, and all, save the two ancient maidens alluded to,
were ready to say or do something for her pleasure. Those uncomfortable
persons, however, were not yet satisfied, and tipping
their tongues with the unkindest venom of all, they began
to talk of a wealthy and accomplished young lady, somewhere,
whom it was rumored the doctor was shortly to marry, in spite
of little flirtations at home, that some people thought meant
something. Very coolly they talked of the mysterious belle's
superior position and advantages, as though no humble and loving
heart shook under their words as under a storm of arrows.

The young girls came back from the woods, and hearing their
reports of the number of choppers, and how many trees were

felled, and cut and corded, the interrupted mirthfulness was restored,
though Hetty laughed less joyously, and her elderly rivals
maintained a dignified reserve.

Aside from this little episode, all went merry, and from the
west window a golden streak of sunshine stretched further and
further, till it began to climb the opposite wall, when the quilt
was rolled to so narrow a width that but few could work on it to
advantage, and Ellen, selecting the most expeditious to complete
the task, took with her the rest to assist in preparing the
supper, which was done to the music of vigorous strokes echoing
and re-echoing from the adjacent woods.

6. VI.

Beneath the glimmer of more candles than Mrs. Wetherbe
had previously burned at once, the supper was spread, and it
was very nice and plentiful; for, more mindful of the wood-chopper's
appetites than of Mrs. Randall's notions of propriety,
there were at least a dozen broiled chickens, besides other substantial
dishes, on the table. I need not attempt a full enumeration
of the preserves, cakes, pies, puddings, and other such
luxuries, displayed on Mrs. Wetherbe's table, and which it is
usual for country housewifes to provide with liberal hands on
occasions of this sort.

Ellen was very proud, as she took the last survey before
sounding the horn for the men-folks; and well she might be so,
for it was chiefly through her ingenuity and active agency that
every thing was so tastefully and successfully prepared.

Mrs. Randall still made herself officious, but with less assurance
than at first. Ellen was in nowise inclined to yield her
authority, and indeed almost the entire responsibility rested on
her, for poor Mrs. Wetherbe was sadly out of spirits in consequence
of the non-appearance of Helph and Jenny. All possible
chances of evil were exaggerated by her, and in her simple
apprehension there were a thousand dangers which did not in
reality exist. In spite of the festivities about her, she sometimes
found it impossible to restrain her tears. Likely enough,

she said, the dear boy had got into the canal, or the river, and
was drownded, or his critter might have become frightened—
there were so many skeerry things in town—and so run away
with him, and broke every thing to pieces.

Once or twice she walked to the neighboring hill, in the hope
of seeing him in the distance, but in vain—he did not come;
the supper could be delayed no longer, and, sitting by the window
that overlooked the highway, she continued her anxious
watching. Not so the mother; she gave herself little trouble
as to whether any accident had befallen her son; perhaps she
guessed the cause of his delay, but, so or not, none were gayer
than she.

Her beauty had once been of a showy order; she was not
yet very much faded; and on this occasion, though her gown
was of calico, her hair was tastefully arranged, and she was
really the best dressed woman in the assembly. Of this she
seemed aware, and she glided into flirtations with the country
beaux, in a free and easy way which greatly surprised some
of us unsophisticated girls; in fact, one or two elderly bachelors
were sorely disappointed, as well as amazed, when they understood
that the lady from town was none other than Helph's
mother! I cannot remember a time when my spirits had much
of the careless buoyancy which makes youth so blessed, and at
this time I was little more than a passive observer, for which
reason, perhaps, I remember more correctly the incidents of
the evening.

The table was spread among the trees in the door-yard, which
was illuminated with tallow candles, in very simple paper lanterns;
the snowy linen waved in the breeze, and the fragrance
of tea and coffee was, for the time, pleasanter than that of
flowers; but flowers were in requisition, and such as were in
bloom, large or small, bright or pale, were gathered to adorn
tresses of every hue, curled and braided with the most elaborate
care. At a later hour, some of them were transferred to
the buttonholes of favored admirers.

What an outbreak of merriment there was, when, at twilight,
down the hill that sloped against the woods, came the gay band
of choppers, with coats swung on their arms, and axes gleaming

over their shoulders. Every thing became irresistibly provocative
of enjoyment, and from every window and every nook
that could be occupied by the quilters, went mingled jests and
laughter.

The quilt was finished, but Mehitable and Elizabeth remained
close within the chamber, whether to contemplate the completed
work, or to regale themselves with each other's accumulations
of scandal, I shall not attempt to guess.

A large tin lantern was placed on the top of the pump, and
beside it was a wash-tub filled with water, which was intended
as a general resort for the ablutions of the young men. Besides
the usual roller-towel, which hung by the kitchen door, there
were two or three extra ones attached to the boughs of the
apple-tree, by the well; and the bar of yellow soap, procured
for the occasion, lay on a shingle, conveniently near, while a
paper comb-case dangled from a bough betwixt the towels.

These toilet facilities were deemed by some of the party
altogether superfluous, and their wooden pocket-combs and
handkerchiefs were modestly preferred. During the fixing up
the general gayety found vent in a liberal plashing and dashing
of water on each other, as also in wrestling bouts, and contests
of mere words, at the conclusion of which the more aristocratic
of the gentlemen resumed their coats, while others, disdaining
ceremony, remained, not only at the supper but during
the entire evening, in their shirt sleeves, and with silk handkerchiefs
bound around their waists, as is the custom with reapers.

“Come, boys!” called Ellen, who assumed a sort of motherly
tone and manner toward all the company, “what does make
you stay away so?”

The laughter among the girls subsided, as they arranged
themselves in a demure row along one side of the table, and
the jests fell at once to a murmur as the boys found their places
opposite. “Now, don't all speak at once,” said Ellen: “how
will you have your coffee, Quincy?”

Mr. Quincy Adams Claverel said he was not particular: he
would take a little sugar and a little cream if she had them
handy, if not, it made no difference.

“Tea or coffee, Mehitable?” she said next; but the young

woman addressed did not drink either—coffee made her drowsy-like,
and if she should drink a cup of tea, she should not sleep
a wink all night.

Elizabeth said, Mehitt was just like herself—she drank a
great deal, and strong. The jesting caused much laughter, and
indeed the mirth was quite irrepressible—on the part of the
girls, because of the joyous occasion, and their greater excitability,
and on that of the young men, because of the green
and yellow twisted bottles that had glistened that afternoon in
the ivy which grew along the woods: even more for this, perhaps,
than for the bright eyes before them.

One said she drank her tea “naked;” another, that Ellen
might give her half a cup first rate—she would rather have a little
and have it good, than have a great deal and not have it good.
And in this she meant not the slightest offence or insinuation.

“I hope,” said Mr. Wetherbe, speaking in a diffident voice,
and pushing back his thin gray hair, “I hope you will none of
you think hard of my woman for not coming to sarve you herself—she
is in the shadder of trouble, but she as well as myself
thanks you all for the good turn you have done us, and
wishes you to make yourselves at home, and frolic as long as
you are a mind to;” and the good man retired to the house to
give his wife such comfort as he could.

The shadow of their sorrow did not rest long on the group
at the table, and the laughter, for its temporary suppression,
was louder than before. There were one or two exceptions,
however, among the gay company. Poor Hetty Martin, as
her eyes ran along the line of smiling faces and failed of the
object of their search, felt them droop heavily, and her smiles
and words were alike forced. Between her and all the pleasures
of the night stood the vision of a fair lady, conjured by
the evil words of Mehitable and Elizabeth, and scarcely would
the tears stay back any longer, when her light-hearted neighbors
rallied her as to the cause of her dejection. At the sound of a
hoofstroke on the highway, her quick and deep attention betrayed
the interest she felt in the absent doctor.

“Why hast thou no music on thy tongue, fair maiden?”
asked a pale, slender young man, sitting near by; and looking

up, her eyes encountered the blue and melancholy ones of a
young cooper, who had lately neglected the adze for the pen,
in the use of which he was not likely to obtain much facility.
His flaxen hair hung in curls down his shoulders; he wore his
collar reversed, and a sprig of cedar in the buttonhole of his
vest, which was of red and yellow colors; otherwise his dress
was not fantastical, though he presented the appearance of one
whose inclinations outstripped his means, perhaps. A gold
chain attached to a silver watch, and a bracelet of hair on the
left wrist, fastened with a small tinsel clasp, evinced that his
tastes had not been cultivated with much care, though his face
attested some natural refinement. He had recently published in
the “Ladies' Garland,” two poems, entitled and opening in
this way:

These very original and ingenious verses he took from his
pocket and submitted to the critical acumen of Hetty, saying
he should really take it as a great favor if she would tell him
frankly what her opinion was of the repetitions in the last line
of the first stanza, as also what she thought of the idea of comparing
a child to a flower, and of Death's transplanting it from
earth to heaven.

Hetty knew nothing of poetry, but she possessed an instinctive
sense of politeness, and something of tact, as indeed
most women do, and shaped her answer to conceal her ignorance,
and at the same time flatter her auditor. This so inflated
his vanity, that he informed her confidentially that he was just
then busily engaged in the collection of his old letters, for nobody
knew, he said, what publicity they might come to, from
his distinguished position as a literary man.

In his apprehensions and cautious endeavors the lady concurred,
and he resolved at once to put in the “Ladies' Garland
an advertisement, requesting all persons who might have
any letters or other writings of his, to return them to the address
of P. Joel Springer, forthwith. High above the praises
of his simple listener, he heard sounding the blessed award of
the future time, and the echoes of his unrequited sorrows went
moaning through the farther parts of the world.

Who of us are much wiser? for on bases as unsubstantial
have we not at one time or another rested some gorgeous fabric
whose turrets were to darken among the stars. Time soon
enough strips the future of its fantastic beauty, drives aside
the softening mists, and reveals to us the hard and sharp realities
of things.

But the guests were generally merry, and they did ample
justice to the viands before them, partly because they had excellent
appetites, and partly in answer to the urgent entreaties
of Ellen, though she constantly depreciated her culinary skill,
and reiterated again and again that she had nothing very inviting.
But her praises were on every tongue, and her hands
were more than busy with the much service required of them,
which nevertheless added to her happiness; and as she glided
up and down the long table, dispensing the tea and coffee, snuffing
the candles, or urging the most bashful to be served with a
little of this or that, just to please her, she was the very personification
of old-fashioned country hospitality.

Every one liked Ellen, for she was one of those who always
forget themselves when there is any thing to remember for
others.

At length, one of the young men who had been in communication
with the bottles, mentioned as lying cool among the ivy
during the afternoon, protested that he would bring a rail to
serve as a pry, unless his companions desisted from further eating
of their own free will.

“That is right, Bill,” called out one kindred in bluntness and
coarseness, “here is a fellow wants choking off.”

“I own up to that,” said another, “I have eaten about a
bushel, I guess.”

“If I had a dollar for every mouthful you have eaten,” said
one, “I wouldn't thank nobody for being kin to me.”

“Well,” answered the person thus addressed, “if I have busted
a couple of buttons off my vest, I don't think you are a fellow
that will be likely to let much bread mould.”

“La, how you young men do run on,” interposed Ellen,
neither surprised nor offended at the coarse freedom of the
jests; and amid obstreperous laughter the party arose, and
many of the young men resorted again to the whiskey bottles,
for the sake of keeping up their spirits, as they said, after
which, with lighted cigars in their mouths, they locked arms
with the ladies, and talked sentiment in the moonlight as they
strolled, in separate pairs, preparatory to assembling in the garret
for the usual order of exercises prescribed for such occasions.

Meantime the candles were mostly carried thither by certain
forlorn maidens, who declared themselves afraid of the
night air, and from the open windows rung out old hymns,
which, if not altogether in keeping with the general feeling and
conduct of the occasion, constituted the only musical resources
of the party, and afforded as much enjoyment perhaps as the
rarest songs to beauties flecked with diamonds, when met for
gayety or for display in marble halls.

Hidden by shadows, and sitting with folded arms on a topmost
fence-rail, P. Joel Springer listened alone to the dirge-like
sighing of the wind, and the dismal hootings of the owl.
And our good hostess, the while, could be prevailed on neither
to eat nor sleep, even though her excellent spouse assured her
that Helph was safe enough, and that she knew right well how
often he had spent the night from home in his young days,
without meeting any accident or misfortune; but the dear old
lady refused to be comforted; and every unusual noise, to her
fancy, was somebody bringing Helph home dead. Mr. Wetherbe
had, the previous autumn, “missed a land” in the sowing
of his wheat field, and that, she had always heard say, was a
sure sign of death.

In couples, already engaged for the first play, the strollers
came in at last, and there was a tempest of laughter and frolic,
which fairly shook the house. The customs which prevailed,

even a dozen years ago, in Clovernook and other rural neighborhoods
of the west, are now obsolete; but I do not in any degree
overdraw the manners of the period in which this quilting
occurred at Mrs. Wetherbe's. Some embarrassment followed
the assembling in the garret under the blaze of so many candles,
but when it was whispered that Jo Allen, the most genial
and true-hearted of them all, had just been taken home on
horseback, and that Abner Gibbs, for his better security, had
ridden behind him, there were renewed peals of laughter, and
no one seemed to doubt that such indulgence and misfortune
were a legitimate subject of merriment. Others, it was more
privately suggested, had also taken a drop too much, and would
not be in condition to see the girls “safe home” that night.

“Come,” said Ellen, as she entered the room, last of all, having
been detained after the fulfilment of her other duties by
kindly endeavoring to induce Jo Allen to drink some new milk,
as an antidote to the Monongahela, “come, why don't some of
you start a play?” But all protested they didn't know a single
thing, and insisted that Ellen should herself lead the
amusements.

Hunting the Key being proposed, the whole party was formed
into a circle, with hands joined to hands, and directed to move
rapidly round and round, during which process, a key was attached
to the coat of some unsuspecting individual, who was
then selected to find it, being informed that it was in the keeping
of one of the party. The circle resumed its gyrations, and
the search commenced by examining pockets and forcing apart
interlocked hands, a procedure relished infinitely—all except the
inquirer after the key well knowing where it might be found.

Soon all diffidence vanished, and

rung across the meadows, and was followed by other rude
rhymes, sung as accompaniments to the playing.
was received with every evidence of admiration—an exchange
of kisses being required, of course. Then came the Selling of
Pawns, and the Paying of Penalties, with requisitions no less
agreeable to all parties.
was enacted by each beau's choosing a partner, and promenading
“to the tune of a slight flirtation.” And Blind Man's Buff,
and Hold Fast all I Give You, and half a dozen other winter
evening's entertainments, then regarded as not undeserving the
best skill of country gentlemen and ladies, though now for the
most part resigned everywhere to the younger boys and girls,
were played with the most genuine enjoyment.

The night wore on to the largest hours, and for a concluding
sport was proposed Love and War. In the centre of the room,
two chairs were placed, some three feet apart, over which a
quilt was carefully spread, so as seemingly to form a divan, and
when a lady was seated on each chair, the gentlemen withdrew to
the lower apartments, to be separately suffered to enter again
when all should be in order. A rap on the door announced an
applicant for admission, who was immediately conducted by
the master of ceremonies to the treacherous divan, and presented
to the ladies, being asked at the same time whether he
preferred love or war? and, no matter which was his choice,
he was requested to sit between the two, when they rose, and
by so doing, caused their innocent admirer to be precipitated
to the floor—a denouement which was sure to be followed by
the most boisterous applause.

“I guess,” said Mehitable, whispering in a congratulatory
way to Elizabeth, “that Hetty will have to get home the best
way she can: I haven't seen anybody ask her for her company.”
But just then there was a little bustle at the door, and a murmur
of congratulations and regrets, over which was heard the
exclamation, “Just in time to see the cat die!” Mehitable
raised herself on tiptoe, and discovered that the doctor had at
length arrived. A moment afterwards he stood beside Hetty,
who was blushing and smiling with the most unfeigned satisfaction;

but in answer to some whispered words of his she
shook her head, a little sadly, as it seemed, and the doctor's
brow darkened with a frown. Of this, Mr. P. Joel Springer
was not unobservant, and coming forward, reluctantly, as he
said, relinquished the pleasure he had expected—concluding his
poetical and gallant speech with, “Adieu, fair maiden, alone I
take my solitary way, communing with the stars.”

Hetty and the doctor were the next to go, and then came a
general breaking up; horses were saddled, and sleepy colts,
leaving the places they had warmed in the grass, followed slowly
the gallants, who walked beside the ladies as they rode. There
were some, too, who took their way across the fields, and others
through the dusty highway, all mated as pleased them, except
Mehitable and Elizabeth, who were both mounted on one horse,
comforting each other with assurances that the young men were
very great fools.

And so, in separate pairs, they wended their ways homeward,
each gentlemen with the slippers of his lady-love in his pocket,
and her mammoth comb in his hat.

7. VII.

We will now return to Helphenstein, and give some particulars
of the night as it passed with him. It was near noon when
he drew the reins before the house of his father, with a heart
full of happy anticipations for the afternoon and evening; but
his bright dream was destined quickly to darken away to the
soberest reality of his life. His father met him in the hall
with a flushed face, and taking his hand with some pretence of
cordiality, said in an irritable tone, as though he had not the
slightest idea of the nature of his errand, “Why, my son, what
in the devil's name has brought you home?”

He then gave a doleful narrative of the discomforts and privations
he had endured in the few days of the absence of Mrs.
Randall, for whom he either felt, or affected to feel, the greatest
love and admiration, whenever she was separated from him;
though his manner towards her, except during these spasmodic
affections, was extremely neglectful and harsh.

“What is a man to do, my son Helph?” he said; “your
poor father has n't had a meal of victuals fit for a dog to eat,
since your mother went into the country: how is she, poor
woman? I think I'll just get into your buggy, and run out and
bring your mother home; things will all go to ruin in two days
more—old black Kitty aint worth a cuss, and Jenny aint worth
another.”

And this last hit he seemed to regard as most especially
happy, in its bearing upon Helph, whose opinions of Jenny by
no means coincided with his own; but his coarse allusion to
her, so far from warping his judgment against the poor girl,
made him for the time oblivious of every thing else, and he
hastened in search of her.

“Lord, honey, I is glad to see you!” exclaimed Aunt Kitty,
looking up from her work in the kitchen: for she was kneading
bread, with the tray in her lap, in consequence of rheumatic
pains which prevented her from standing much on her feet.

“What in the world is the matter?” asked Helph, anxiously,
as he saw her disability.

“Noffin much,” she said, smiling; “my feet are like to bust
wid the inflammatious rheumatis—dat's all. But I 's a poor
sinful critter,” she continued, “and de flesh pulls mighty hard
on de sperrit, sometimes, when I ought to be thinkin' ob de
mornin' ober Jordan.”

And having assured him that she would move her old bones
as fast as she could, and prepare the dinner, she directed him
where to find Jenny, saying, “Go 'long wid you, and you 'll
find her a seamsterin' up stairs, and never mind de 'stress of
an old darkie like me.”

As he obeyed, he heard her calling on the Lord to bless him,
for that he was the best young master of them all. Poor
kind-hearted creature! she did not then or ever, as others heard,
ask any blessing for herself.

In one end of the long low garret, unplastered, and comfortless,
from the heat in summer and the cold in winter, there was
a cot bed, a dilapidated old trunk, a broken work-stand, a small
cracked looking-glass, and a strip of faded carpet. By courtesy,
this was called Jenny's room; and here, seated on a chair without

any back, sat the maiden, stitching shirts for her adopted
brothers, when the one who, from some cause or other, never
called her sister, appeared suddenly before her. Smiling, she
ran forward to meet him, but suddenly checking herself, she
blushed deeply, and the exclamation, “Dear Helph!” that rose
to her lips, was subdued and formalized to simple “Helphenstein.”
The cheek that was smooth when she saw him last,
was darkened into manhood now, and her arm remained passive,
that had always been thrown lovingly about his neck; but
in this new timidity she appeared only the more beautiful, in
the eyes of her admirer, and if she declined the old expressions
of fondness, he did not.

The first feeling of pleasure and surprise quickly subsided, on
her part, into one of pain and embarrassment, when she remembered
her torn and faded dress, and the disappointment that
awaited him.

“Well, Jenny,” he said, when the first greeting was over,
“I have come for you—and you must get ready as soon as
possible.”

Poor child! she turned away her face to hide the tears that
would not be kept down, as she answered, “I cannot go—I have
nothing to get ready.”

And then inquiries were made about the new dress of which
he had been informed, and though for a time Jenny hesitated,
he drew from her at last the confession that it had been appropriated
by his mother, under a promise of procuring for her
another when she should have made a dozen shirts to pay for
it. An exclamation that evinced little filial reverence fell from
his lips, and then as he soothed her grief, and sympathized with
her, his boyish affection was deepened more and more by pity.

“Never mind, Jenny,” he said, in tones of simple and truthful
earnestness, “wear any thing to-day, but go—for my sake
go; I like you just as well in an old dress as in a new one.”

Jenny had been little used to kindness, and from her lonely
and sad heart, gratitude found expression in hot and thick-coming
tears.

Certainly, she would like of all things to go to the quilting,
and the more, perhaps, that Helph was come for her; but in no

time of her life had poverty seemed so painful a thing. During
the past week she had examined her scanty wardrobe repeatedly;
her shoes, too, were down at the heels, and out at
the toes; to go decently was quite impossible, and yet, she
could not suppress the desire, nor refrain from thinking, over
and over, if this dress were not quite so much faded, or if that
were not so short and outgrown—and then, if she had money
to buy a pair of shoes, and could borrow a neck-ribbon and
collar!—in short, if things were a little better than they were
she might go, and perhaps, in the night her deficiencies would
be less noticeable.

But in the way of all her thinking and planning lay the forbidding
if; and in answer to the young man's entreaties, she
could only cry and shake her head.

She half wished he would go away, and at the same time
feared he would go; she avoided looking at the old run-down
slippers she was wearing, as well as at her patched gown, in the
vain hope that thus he would be prevented from seeing them;
and so, half sorry and half glad, half ashamed and half honestly
indignant, she sat—the work fallen into her lap, and the
tears now and then dropping, despite her frequent winking,
and vain efforts to smile.

At length Helph remembered that his horse had not been
cared for; and looking down from the little window, he found,
to his further annoyance, that both horse and buggy were gone,
and so his return home indefinitely delayed.

“I wish to Heaven,” he angrily said, turning towards Jenny,
“you and I had a home somewhere beyond the reach of the
impositions practised on us by Mr. and Mrs. Randall!”

The last words were in a bitter but subdued tone; and it was
thus, in resentment and sorrow, that the love-making of Helph
and Jenny began.

8. VIII.

Down the thinly-wooded hills, west of the great city, reached
the long shadows of the sunset. The streets were crowded
with mechanics seeking their firesides—in one hand the little

tin pail in which dinner had been carried, and in the other a
toy for the baby, perhaps, or a pound of tea or of meat for the
good wife.

The smoke curled upward from the chimneys of the suburban
districts, and little rustic girls and boys were seen in all directions,
hurrying homeward with their arms full of shavings; old
women, too, with their bags of rags, betook themselves somewhere—Heaven
only knows whether they had any homes, or
where they went—but at any rate, with backs bending under
their awful burdens, they turned into lanes and alleys, and disappeared;
the tired dray-horses walked faster and nimbler as
they smelled the oats in the manger; and here and there, in the
less frequented streets, bands of school-boys and girls drove
their hoops, or linked their arms and skipped joyously up and
down the pavement; while now and then a pair of older children
strolled, in happiness, for that they dreamed of still more
blessed times to come. The reflections of beautiful things in the
future, make the present bright, and it is well for us, since the
splendor fades from our approach, and it is only in reveries of
hope that we find ourselves in rest, or crowned with beauty.

We have need to thank thee, oh our Father, that thou hast
given us the power of seeing visions and dreaming dreams!
Earth, with all the glory of its grass and all the splendor of its
flowers, were dreary and barren and desolate, but for that
divine insanity which shapes deformity into grace, and darkness
into light. How the low roof is lifted up on the airy
pillars of thought, and the close dark walls expanded and made
enchanting with the pictures of the imagination! And best of
all, by this blessed power the cheeks that are colorless, and the
foreheads that are wrinkled by time, retain in our eyes the
freshness and the smoothness of primal years; to us they cannot
grow old, for we see

Life's sharp realities press us sore, sometimes, and but for the
unsubstantial bases on which we build some new anticipations,
we should often rush headlong to the dark.

9. IX.

They were sitting together, Helph and Jenny, with the twilight
deepening around them, speaking little, thinking much,
and gazing through the long vistas open to the sunshine, and
brighter than the western clouds. But they did not think of
the night that was falling, they did not hear the wind soughing
among the hot walls and roofs, and prophesying storm and
darkness.

Suddenly appeared before them a miserably clad little boy,
the one mentioned in a previous chapter as coming for money,
and now, after a moment's hesitation, on seeing a stranger, he
laid his head in the lap of Jenny, and cried aloud. Stooping
over him, she smoothed back his hair and kissed his forehead;
and in choked and broken utterances he made known his mournful
errand: little Willie was very sick, and Jenny was wanted
at home.

Few preparations were required. Helph would not hear of
her going alone; and in the new and terrible fear awakened
by the message of the child, all her pride vanished, and she did
not remonstrate, though she knew the wretchedness of poverty
that would be bared before him. Folding close in hers the
hand of her little brother, and with tears dimming her eyes,
she silently led the way to the miserable place occupied by her
family.

It was night, and the light of a hundred windows shone down
upon them, when, turning to her young protector, she said, in
a voice trembling with both shame and sorrow, perhaps, “This
is the place.” It was a large dingy building, five stories high
and nearly a hundred feet long, very roughly but substantially
built of brick. It was situated in the meanest suburb of the
city, on an unpaved alley, and opposite a ruinous graveyard,
and it had been erected on the cheapest possible plan, with
especial reference to the poorest class of the community.
Scarcely had the wealthy proprietor an opportunity of posting

bills announcing rooms to let, before it was all occupied; and
with its miserable accommodations, and crowded with people
who were almost paupers, it was a perfect hive of misery.
Porch above porch, opening out on the alley, served as dooryards
to the different apartments—places for the drying of
miserable rags—play-grounds for the children—and look-outs,
for the decrepit old women, on sunny afternoons.

Dish-water, washing suds, and every thing else, from tea and
coffee grounds to all manner of picked bones and other refuse,
were dashed down from these tiers of balconies to the ground
below, so that a more filthy and in all ways unendurable spectacle
can scarcely be imagined, than was presented in the vicinity
of this money-making device, this miserable house refuge.

Leaning against the balusters, smoking and jesting, or quarreling
and swearing, were groups of men, who might be counted
by tens and twenties; and the feeble and querulous tones of
woman, now and then, were heard among them, or from within
the wretched chambers. A little apart from one of these
groups of ignorant disputants sat an old crone combing her
gray hair by the light of a tallow candle, other females were
ironing or washing dishes, while others lolled listlessly and
gracelessly about, listening to, and sometimes taking part in,
the vile or savage or pitiable conversations.

Children, half naked, were playing in pools of stagnant
water, and now and then pelting each other with heads of fishes,
and with slimy bones, caught up at random; and one group,
more vicious than the others, were diverting themselves by
throwing stones at an old cat that lay half in and half out of a
puddle, responding, by feeble struggles, as the rough missiles
struck against her, and here and there were going on such fierce
contests of brutish force as every day illustrate the melancholy
truth that the poor owe so much of their misery to the indulgence
of their basest passions, rather than to any causes necessarily
connected with poverty.

Depravity, as well as poverty, had joined itself to that miserable
congregation. Smoke issued thick from some of the
chimneys, full of the odors of mutton and coffee, and as these
mixed with the vile stenches that thickened the atmosphere

near the scene, Helph, who had been accustomed to the free
air of the country, fresh with the scents of the hay-fields and
orchards, found it hard to suppress the exclamation of disgust
and loathing that rose to his lips, when he turned with Jenny
into the alley, and his senses apprehended in a twinkling what
I have been so long in describing.

Up the steep and narrow wooden stairs, flight after flight, they
passed, catching through the open doors of the different apartments
glimpses of the same squalid character—greasy smoking
stoves, dirty beds, ragged women and children, with here and
there dozing dogs, or men prostrate on the bare floors—either
from weariness or drunkenness—and meagerly-spread tables,
and cradles, and creeping, and crying, and sleeping babies, all
in close proximity.

From the third landing they turned into a side door, and such
a picture presented itself as the young man had never seen
hitherto: the windows were open, but the atmosphere was close,
and had a disagreeable smell of herbs and medicines; a single
candle was lighted, and though the shapes of things were not
distinctly brought out, enough was visible to indicate the extreme
poverty and wretchedness of the family.

It was very still in the room, for the children, with instinctive
fear, were huddled together in the darkest corner, and spoke in
whispers when they spoke at all; and the mother, patient and
pale and wan, sat silent by the bed, holding the chubby sunburned
hands of her dying little boy.

“Oh, mother,” said Jenny, treading softly and speaking low.
Tears filled the poor woman's mild blue eyes, and her lips
trembled as she answered, “It is almost over—he does not
know me any more.”

And forgetting, in the blind fondness of the mother, the
darkness and the sorrow and the pain, and worst of all, the contagion
of evil example, from which he was about to be free,
she buried her face in her hands, and shook with convulsive
agony. All the deprivation and weariness and despair, that
had sometimes made her, with scarce a consciousness of what
she was doing, implore the coming of death, or annihilation, were
in this new sorrow as nothing: with her baby laughing in her

arms, as he had been but the last week, she would be strong to
front the most miserable fate.

Tie after tie may be unbound from the heart, while our steps
climb the rough steep that goes up to power, for the sweet
household affections unwind themselves more and more as the
distance widens between aspiration and contentment, and over
the tide that sweeps into the shining haven of ambition there
is no crossing back. The brow that has felt the shadow of the
laurel, will not be comforted by the familiar kisses of love;
and struggling to the heights of fame, the rumble of clods
against the coffin of some mate of long ago, comes softened of
its awfulest terror; but where the heart, unwarped from its
natural yearnings, presses close, till its throbbings bring up
echoes from the stony bottom of the grave, and when, from
the heaped mound, reaches a shadow that darkens the world
for the humble eyes that may never look up any more—these
keep the bleeding affections, these stay the mourning that the
great cannot understand. Where the wave is narrow, the
dropping of even a pebble of hope sends up the swelling circles
till the whole bosom of the stream is agitated; but in the
broader sea, they lessen and lessen till they lose themselves
in a border of light. And over that little life, moaning itself
away in the dim obscurity of its birth-chamber, fell bitterer
tears, and bowed hearts aching with sharper pains, than they
may ever know whose joys are not alike as simple and as few.
“Oh, Willie, dear little Willie,” sobbed Jenny, folding her
arms about him and kissing him over and over, “speak to me
once, only once more!” Her tears were hot on his whitening
face, but he did not lift his heavily-drooping eyes, nor turn towards
her on the pillow. The children fell asleep, one on
another, where they sat. In the presence of the strong healthy
man they were less afraid, and nestling close together, gradually
forgot that little Willie was not among them—and so came
the good gift which God giveth his beloved in nights of sorrow.

In some chink of the wall the cricket chirped to itself the
same quick short sound, over and over, and about the candle
circled and fluttered the gray-winged moths, heedless of their
perished fellows, and on the table stood a painted bucket half

filled with tepid water, and beside it a brown jug and broken
glass.

Now and then the mother and daughter exchanged anxious
looks, as a footstep was heard on the stairs, but when it turned
aside to some one of the adjoining chambers, they resumed
their watching, not speaking their hopes or fears, if either had
been awakened.

From the white dome of St. Peter's sounded the silvery
chime of the midnight; the sick child had fallen asleep an
hour before, but now his eyes opened full on his mother, and
his white lips worked faintly; “Jenny,” she said, in a tone of
low but fearful distinctness—for with her head on the bedside
she was fast dozing into forgetfulness—“he is going—going
home.”

“Home,” he repeated, sweetly, and that was the last word
he ever said.

The young man came forward hastily—the soft light of a
setting star drifted across the pillow, and in its pale radiance
he laid the hands together, and smoothed the death-dampened
curls.

10. X.

“Oh, my children!” cried Mrs. Mitchel, bending over the
huddled sleepers, and calling them one by one to awake, “your
poor little brother is dead—he will never play with you any
more.”

“Let them sleep,” said Jenny, whose grief was less passionate,
“they cannot do him any good now, and the time will come
soon enough that they cannot sleep.”

“I know it, oh, I know it!” she sobbed, “but this silence
seems so terrible; I want them to wake and speak to me, and
yet,” she added, after a moment, “I know not what I want. I
only know that my little darling will not wake in the morning.
Oh,” she continued, “he was the loveliest and the best of
all—he never cried when he was hurt, like other children, nor
gave me trouble in any way;” and she then recounted, feeding
her sorrow with the memory, all his endearing little ways, from

his first conscious smiling to the last word he had spoken; numbered
over the little coats he had worn, and the color of them,
saying how pretty he had thought the blue one, and how proud
he had been of the pink one with the ruffled sleeves, and how
often she had lifted him up to the broken looking-glass to see
the baby, as he called himself, for that he always wanted to
see the curls she made for him. Sometimes she had crossed
him; she wished now she had never done so; and sometimes
she had neglected him when she had thought herself too busy
to attend to his little wants; but now that was all irreparable,
she blamed herself harshly, and thought how much better she
might have done.

The first day of his sickness she had scolded him for being
fretful, and put him roughly aside when he clung about her
knees, and hindered the work on which their bread depended;
she might have known that he was ailing, she said, for that he
was always good when well, and so should have neglected every
thing else for him; if she had done so in time, if she had tried
this medicine or that, if she had kept his head bathed, one night,
when she chanced to fall asleep, and waked with his calling her
“mother,” and saying the fire was burning him; in short, if she
had done any thing she had not done, it might have been better,
her darling Willie might have got well.

“The dear baby,” she said, taking his cold, stiffening feet
in her hand, “he never had any shoes, and I promised so often
to get them.”

“He does not need them now,” interposed Jenny.

“I know it, I know it,” she answered, and yet she could not
subdue this grief that her boy was dead, and had never had the
shoes that he thought it would be so fine to have.

“Oh, mother, do not cry so,” Jenny said; “I will come
home and we will love each other better, we who are left, and
work together and try to live till God takes us where he has
taken the baby—home, home!” but in repeating his dying
words, her voice faltered, and hiding her face in the lap of her
mother, she gave way to agony that till then she had kept down.

But, alas, it was not even their poor privilege to weep uninterruptedly,
and, shuddering, they grew still when, slowly and

heavily climbing the narrow and dark stairs, sounded the well-known
step of the drunken husband and father. A minute the
numb and clumsy hand fumbled about the door-latch, and then
with a hiccup, and a half articulate oath, the man, if man he
should be called, staggered and stumbled into the room.

His dull brain apprehended the case but imperfectly, and
seeing his wife, he supposed her to be waiting for him, as he
had found her a thousand times before; and mixing something
of old fondness with a coarse and brutal familiarity, he put his
arm about her neck, saying, “Why the hell are you waiting
for me, Nancy, when you know them fellers won't never let
me come home? Daughter,” he continued, addressing Jenny,
“just hand me that jug, that's a good girl, I feel faint like,”
and putting his hand to his temple, where the blood was oozing
from a recent cut, he finished his speech with an oath.

“Hush, father, hush,” beseechingly said the girl, pointing to
the bed; but probably supposing she meant to indicate it as a
resting-place for him, he reeled towards and half fell upon it,
one arm thrown across the dead child, and the blood dripping
from his bruised and distorted face, muttering curses and threatening
revenge against the comrades who, he said deprecatingly,
made him drink when he told them he wanted to go home, d—n
them! In such imprecations and excuses he fell into a dreadful
unconsciousness.

Not knowing whom else to call, Helphenstein summoned
Aunt Kitty, and with the aid of his arm and a crutch, but more
than all leaning on her own zeal to do good, she came, and in
her kindly but rude fashion comforted the mourners, partly by
pictures of the glory “ober Jordan,” and partly by narratives
of the terriblest sufferings she had known, as taking the child
on her knees she dressed it for the grave, decently as might be.

“She had lost a baby, too,” she said, “and when her breasts
were aching with the milk, she felt as if she wanted to be
gwine to it wharever it were, for that she couldn't 'xist without
it no ways, but she did, and arter a while she got over it.
Another son,” she said, “was spared to grow up and do a heap
of hard work; he was away from her a piece down the river,
and kep a liberty stable, and at last, when he had saved a'most

money enough, to buy himself, a vile-tempered critter kicked
out his brains, and dat ar was his last. And so,” said Aunt
Kitty, “it was wust for de one dat growed up, arter all.”

The stars grew motionless, the heavy clouds loomed in sombre
and far-reaching masses, and the night went by drearily,
wearily, painfully, till gray began to divide the heavy darkness,
and through the gaps of the thick woods away over the
eastern hills, the chilly river of morning light came pouring in.

11. XI.

The funeral was over, and it was almost night when Mr.
Randall returned from the country, having availed himself more
largely of the horse and buggy than he at first intended, by
taking several widely separate points, where errands called him,
in his route. Mrs. Randall came too, and with her the great
basket, but not empty, as she had taken it.

The poor animal had been driven mercilessly, and, dripping
with sweat, and breathing hard, gladly turned to his young
master and rubbed his face against his caressing hand.

It was no very cordial greeting which the son gave the
parents, and they in turn were little pleased with him, for any
special liking is not to be concealed even from the commonest
apprehension, and the attachment of Helph and Jenny had
lately become an unquestionable fact.

“What in the devil's name are we to do with that girl, mother?
she don't earn her salt,” said Mr. Randall.

Their first inquiries on entering the house had been for Jenny,
and Helph, with provoking purpose, had simply said she was
not at home. Words followed words, sharper and faster, until
Mr. Randall, with an affirmation that need not be repeated, said
he would suffer his house to be her home no longer; if she
could not be trusted with the care of it for a day, she was not
worthy to have any better place than the pig-sty in which her
parents lived.

“I always told you,” interposed the wife, “that girl was a
mean, low-lived thing; and it was none of my doings, the taking

her from the washing-tub, where she belongs, and making her
as good as any of us. I tell you them kind of folks must be
kept down, and I always told you so.”

“You always told me great things,” said the husband, coloring
with rage; “what in the devil's name is there you don't
tell me, or you don't know, I wonder!”

“Well, sir,” she answered, speaking with a subdued sullenness,
“there is one thing I did not know till it was too late.”

With all his blustering, Mr. Randall was a coward and
craven at heart, and turning to the sideboard he imbibed a
deeper draught of brandy than usual, diverting his indignation
to Jenny, whom he called a poor creep-louse, that had infested
his home long enough.

“If you were not my father,” answered Helph, who had
inherited a temper capable of being ungovernably aroused,
“I'd beat you with as good a will as I ever beat iron to a
horse-shoe.”

“What in the devil's name is the girl to you, I'd like to
know?”

“Before you are a month older you will find out what she
is to me,” replied the youth, drawing himself up to his full
height, and passing his hand proudly across his beard.

“My son, your father has a great deal to irritate him, and
he is hasty sometimes, but let bygones be bygones; but what
business had the girl away?”

And with a trembling hand, Mr. Randall presented a glass
of brandy as a kind of peace-offering to his son. But, for the
first time in his life, the young man refused; he had seen its
brutalizing effects the previous night, saw them then, and had
determined to be warned in time. In answer to the question respecting
Jenny, however, he related briefly and simply the melancholy
event which had called and still detained her from her
usual employments.

“A good thing,” said Mr. Randall; “one brat less to be
taken care of; but that's no reason the girl should stay away;
if the young one is dead, she can't bring it to life, nor dig a
hole to put it in, either.”

Mrs. Randall, having adjusted her lace cap, and ordered

Aunt Kitty to keep the basket out of the reach of the big
boys, and to remember and not eat all there was in it herself,
ascended the stairs to ascertain how Jenny had progressed with
her shirt-making.

Such family altercations, it is to be hoped, are exceedingly
rare; but I have not exaggerated the common experience of
these specimens of the “self-made aristocracy.” Ignorant, passionate,
vulgar—nothing elevated them from the lowest grade
of society but money, and this was in most cases an irresistible
influence in their favor.

In all public meetings, especially those having any reference
to the poor, Mr. Randall was apt to be a prominent personage;
on more occasions than one he had set down large figures for
charitable purposes; in short, his position was that of an eminently
liberal and honorable citizen, when, in fact, a man guilty
of more little meannesses and knaveries, a man in all ways
so debased, could scarcely anywhere be found. The drunkard
whom he affected to despise had often a less depraved appetite
than his own, and though he did not reel and stagger and
lie in the gutter, it was only an habitual indulgence in strong
drinks which rendered him superior to their more debilitating
effects. He lay on the sofa at home, and swore and grumbled
and hiccuped, and drank, and drank, and drank. His
children did not respect him, and how could they, when the
whole course of his conduct was calculated to inspire disgust
and loathing in every heart endowed with any natural ideas of
right. The two bullying and beardless sons who had grown up
under his immediate influence, were precociously wicked, and
possessed scarcely a redeeming quality, and the younger ones
were treading close in their footsteps.

Helph, however, had some of the more ennobling attributes
of manhood. He was blunt and plain and rustic to be sure,
but he was frank and honest and sincere, industrious, sober,
and affectionate, alike averse to the exactions and impositions
of his mother, and the pitiful penuriousness of his father.
He was neither ashamed of the toil-hardened hands that earned
his daily bread, nor proud because his mother's earrings dangled
to her shoulders, or that her dress was gay and expensive,

or that his father was president of a bank, and lived in a fine
house. Independent and straightforward, and for the most part
saving enough, so that he might give himself some trouble to
find a lost shilling, yet where he saw actual need, he would give
it, with as much pleasure as he had in finding it.

Toward evening Jenny returned home, pale and sad and suffering,
but there were no little kindnesses, nor any softness of word
or manner to greet her; she was required at once to resume her
work, and admonished to retrieve lost time, for that crying
would only make her sick, and do no good; Helph, however,
subdued his bluff gentleness into tenderness never manifested for
her before, and his occasional smile, through tears, was an over
payment for the cruelty of the rest.

Mr. Randall and his wife began to be seriously alarmed, lest
a hasty marriage of the parties should bring on themselves
irretrievable disgrace. A long consultation was held, therefore,
and it was resolved to postpone, by pretended acquiescence,
any clandestine movement, until time could be gained to frustrate
hopelessly the design which was evidently meditated by
the son.

“We have been talking of our own love,” said they; “how
hard we should have thought it to be parted; and seeing that
you really are attached to each other, we oppose no obstacle;
a little delay is all we ask: Jenny shall go to school for a year,
and you, Helph, will have, by-and-by, more experience, and
more means, perhaps, at your command.”

Much more they said, in this conciliatory way; the dishonesty
was successful; and that night, instead of stealing away
together as they had proposed, Helph slept soundly in his
country home, and Jenny dreamed bright dreams of coming
years.

12. XII.

Midnight overspread the city; the clouds hung low and
gloomy, and the atmosphere was close and oppressive, when a
man past the prime of life, miserably clad, might have been
seen stealthily threading through by-ways and alleys, now

stopping and looking noiselessly backward and forward, and
then, with trembling and unsteady steps, gliding forward. He
wore no hat, his gray hair was matted, and over one eye was
a purple and ghastly cut, from which he seemed to have torn
the bandage, for in one hand he held a cloth spotted with blood.
He apparently thought himself followed by an enemy, from
whom he was endeavoring to escape, and now and then he huddled
in some dark nook whence his eyes, bright with insanity,
peered vigilantly about. So, by fits and starts, he made his
way to the old graveyard where the poor are buried. The
trees stood still together, for there was scarcely a breath of air,
and he proceeded noiselessly among the monuments and crosses
and low headstones, never pausing, till he came to a little new
grave, the rounded mound of which was smooth and fresh as if
it had been raised but a single hour.

“Here,” he said, squatting on the ground and digging madly
but feebly into the earth with his hands, “here is the very place
they put him, d—n them! but his mother shall have him back;
I ain't so drunk that I can't dig him up;” and pausing now and
then to listen, he soon levelled the heap of earth above his
child.

“In God's name, what are you doing?” exclaimed an authoritative
voice, and a club was struck forcibly against the
board fence hard by. Howling an impious imprecation, the
frightened wretch rushed blindly and headlong across the
graves, leaped the fence like a tiger, and disappeared in the
hollow beyond. An hour afterwards he had gained the valley
which lies a mile or two northwest of the city, and along which
a creek, sometimes slow and sluggish, and sometimes deep and
turbulent, drags and hurries itself toward the brighter waters
of the Ohio.

The white-trunked sycamores leaned toward each other across
the stream, the broad faded leaves dropping slowly slantwise
to the ground, as the wind slipped damp and silent from bough
to bough. Here and there the surface of the water was darkened
by rifts of foliage that, lodged among brushwood, gave
shelter to the checky blacksnake and the white-bellied toad.
Huge logs that had drifted together in the spring freshet, lay

black and rotting in the current, with noxious weeds springing
rank from their decay.

Toward the deepest water the wretched creature seemed
irresistibly drawn, and holding with one hand to a sapling that
grew in the bank, he leaned far out and tried the depth with a
slender pole. He then retreated, and seemed struggling as with
a fierce temptation, but drew near again and with his foot
broke off shelving weights of earth, and watched their plashing
and sinking; a moment he lifted his eyes to heaven—there
was a heavier plunge—and he was gone from the bank. A wild
cry rose piercing through the darkness; the crimson top of a
clump of iron weeds that grew low in the bank was drawn suddenly
under the water, as if the hand reached for help, then the
cry and the plashing were still, and the waves closed together.
A week afterwards the swollen corpse of Jenny's father was
drawn from the stream.

13. XIII.

All the boyish habits of Helph were at once thrown aside,
and much Aunt Wetherbe marveled when she saw him a day
or two after his return from the city, bring forth from the cellar
a little sled on which, in all previous winters, he had been
accustomed (out of the view of the highway, it is true), to ride
down hill.

“What on airth now?” she said, placing her hands on either
hip, and eyeing him in sorrowful amazement. A great deal of
pains had been lavished on the making of the sled, the runners
were shod with iron, and it was nicely painted; indeed, Helph
had considered it a specimen of the best art, in its way, and now,
as he dragged it forth to light, dusting it with his handkerchief,
and brushing the spider-webs from among its slender beams, he
found it hard to suppress the old admiration for his beautiful
handiwork. Nevertheless, when he found himself observed, he
gave it a rough throw, which lodged it, broken and ruined,
among some rubbish, and drawing his hat over his eyes to conceal
from them the wreck, he strode away without at all
noticing his aunt, who immediately went in search of her

good man, who, in her estimation at least, knew almost every
thing, to ask an explanation of the boy's unaccountable conduct.

But the strange freaks of the young man were not yet at an
end, and on returning to the house he took from a nail beneath
the looking-glass, where they had long hung, the admiration of
all visitors, a string of speckled birds' eggs and the long silvery
skin of a snake, and threw them carelessly into the fire, thereby
sending a sharp pang through the heart of Aunt Wetherbe, if
not through his own. He next took from the joist a bundle of
arrows and darts, the latter out in fanciful shapes, which he had
made at various times to amuse his leisure, and crushed them
together in a box of kindlings, saying, in answer to the remonstrance
of his relation, that was all they were good for.

From the pockets of coats and trowsers he was observed at
various times to make sundry ejectments, embracing all such
trinkets as one is apt to accumulate during boyish years, together
with bits of twine, brass-headed nails, and other treasures
that are prized by youths disposed to be industrious and provident.
But when he brought from an out-house a squirrel's
cage, where many a captive had been civilized into tricks never
dreamed of in his wild swingings from bough to bough, Aunt
Wetherbe took it from his hands, just as she would have done
when he was a wayward child, exclaiming with real displeasure,
“Lord-a-mercy, child! has the old boy himself got into you?”
But Helph soon proved that he was not possessed of the evil
one, by the manliness with which he talked of the coming election,
discussing shrewdly the merits of candidates and parties,
and of such other subjects as he seemed to think deserving of a
manly consideration. All the implements necessary to shaving
operations were shortly procured, and Helph was observed to
spend much of his time in their examination and careful preparation,
though no special necessity for their use was observable,
and hitherto the old razor of his uncle had only now and
then been brought into requisition by him.

When the first flush of conscious manhood had subsided, a
thoughtful and almost sorrowful feeling pervaded the dreams
of the young man; he was much alone, knit his brows, and

answered vaguely when questioned. At last he abruptly an
nounced his intention of beginning the world for himself. He
would sell his horse, and the various farming implements he
possessed, together with the pair of young oxen which he had
played with and petted, and taught to plow and draw the cart,
and with the means thus acquired he would procure a small
shop in the vicinity of the city, and there resume his black-smithing.

“Tut, tut,” said the aunt, “I'd rather you would steal away
from the splitting of oven-wood and the churning of a morning,
just as you used to do, to set quail traps and shoot at a
mark, than to be talking in this way. Your uncle and me
can't get along without you: no, no, my child, you must n't
think of going.”

Helph brushed his hand across his eyes, appealing to the
authority which had always been absolute; and removing his
spectacles, the good old man rubbed them carefully through
the corner of his handkerchief as he said, sadly but decidedly,
“Yes, my son, you have made a wise resolve: you are almost
a man now (here the youth's face colored), and it's time you
were beginning to work for yourself and be a man amongst
men;” and approaching an old-fashioned walnut desk in which
were kept all manner of yellow and musty receipts and letters,
he unlocked it slowly, and pouring from a stout linen bag a
quantity of silver, counted the dollars to the number of a hundred,
and placing them in the hand of the young man, he said,
“A little present to help you on in the world; make good use
of it, my boy; but above all things, continue in the honest,
straight path in which you have always kept, and my word for
it, prosperity will come to you, even though you have but a
small beginning. I have lived to be an old man,” he continued,
“and I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
begging bread.”

Boyishly, Helph began drawing figures rapidly on the table
with his finger, for he felt the tears coming, but it would not
do, and looking rather than speaking his thanks, he hurried
from the house, and for an hour chopped vigorously at the
wood-pile.

It was soon concluded to hurry the preparations for his departure,
so that he might get fairly settled before the coming
on of cold weather, and a list of goods and chattels to be sold
at public vendue, on a specified day, was made out, and bills
posted on the school-house, at the cross-roads, and in the bar-room
of the tavern, stating the time and place of sale. Ellen
Blake was sent for in haste to come right away and make up
half a dozen shirts, and the provident old lady briskly plied the
knitting-needles, that her nephew might lack for nothing. All
talked gayly of the new project, but the gayety was assumed,
and Ellen herself, with all her powers of making sombre things
take cheerful aspects, felt that in this instance she did not succeed.

Now that he was about to part with them, the gay young
horse that had eaten so often from his hand, and the two gentle
steers that had bowed their necks beneath the heavy yoke at
his bidding, seemed to the young master almost humanly endeared,
and he fed and caressed them morning and evening with
unusual solicitude, tossing them oat sheaves and emptying
measures of corn very liberally.

“Any calves or beef cattle to sell,” called a coarse, loud
voice to Helph, as he lingered near the stall of his oxen, the
evening preceding the day of sale.

“No,” answered the young man, seeing that it was a butcher
who asked the question.

“I saw an advertisement of oxen to be sold here to-morrow,”
said the man, striking his spurred heel against his horse, and
reining him in with a jerk.

“I prefer selling to a farmer,” said Helph, as he leaned
against the broad shoulders of one of the steers, and took in
his hand its horn of greenish white.

“My money is as good as any man's,” said the butcher, and
throwing himself from the saddle he approached the stall, and
after walking once or twice around the unconsciously doomed
animals, and pinching their hides with his fingers, he offered
for them a larger sum than Helph expected; he however
shut his eyes to the proposed advantage, saying he hoped

to sell them to some neighbor who would keep them and be
kind to them.

A half contemptuous laugh answered, in part, as the butcher
turned away, saying he was going further into the country, and
would call on his return—they might not be sold.

Thus far, Helph had not advised with Jenny relative to the
new movement he was about making, but when all arrangements
were made, and it was quite too late to retract, he resolved to
ask her advice; and I suspect in this conduct he was not acting
without a precedent.

From among a bunch of quills that had remained in the
old desk from time immemorial, he selected one, with great
care, and having rubbed his pocket-knife across the end of his
boot for an hour or more, next began a search for ink, of which
his uncle told him there was a good bottle full on the upper
shelf of the cupboard. But the said bottle was not to be found,
and after a good deal of rummaging and some questioning of
Aunt Wetherbe, it was finally ascertained that the ink alluded
to must have been bought ten or twelve years previously, and
that only some dry powder remained of it now in the bottom
of a broken inkstand: yet to this a little vinegar was added,
and having shaken it thoroughly, the young man concluded it
would answer. More than once during all this preparation, he had
been asked what he was going to do, for writing was not done
in the family except on eventful occasions; but the question
elicited no response more direct than “Nothing much,” and so,
at last, with a sheet of foolscap, ink, and a quill, he retired to his
own room—Aunt Wetherbe having first stuck a pin in the candle,
indicating the portion he was privileged to burn.

Whether more or less candle were consumed, I am not advised,
but that a letter was written, I have good authority for
believing. Murder will out, there is no doubt about that, and
the day following the writing, Aunt Wetherbe chanced to have
occasion to untie a bundle of herbs that, in a pillow-case, had
been suspended from the ceiling of Helph's room for a long
time, and what should she find but a letter addressed to Jenny
Mitchel, fantastically folded and sealed with four red wafers; it
had evidently been placed there to await a secret opportunity

of conveyance to the post-office. Long was the whispered conference
between the old lady and Ellen, that followed this discovery;
very indignant was the aunt, at first, for old people
are too apt to think of love and marriage in the young as highly
improper; but Ellen, whose regard for matrimony was certainly
more lenient, exerted her liveliest influence in behalf of the
young people, nor were her efforts unsuccessful, and an unobtrusive
silence on the subject was resolved upon.

During this little excitement in doors, there was much noise
and bustle without; Helph's young horse was gayly caparisoned,
and bearing proudly various riders up and down the
space, where, among plows, harrows, scythes, and other agricultural
implements, a number of farmers were gathered, discussing
politics, smoking, and shrewdly calculating how much they
could afford to bid for this or that article. Yoked together, and
chewing their cuds very contentedly, stood the plump young
oxen, but no one admired them with the design of purchasing.
The vendue was soon over, and all else had been sold, readily
and well. The sleek bay was gone, proudly arching his neck
to the hand of a new master, and the neighbors brought their
teams to carry home whatever they had purchased, and Helph
half sighed as one after another put into his hand the money
for which he had bargained away the familiar treasures which
had been a part of his existence.

As he lingered at the style, he saw approaching a large flock
of sheep, closely huddled together, and with red chalk marks
on their sides indicating their destiny; while behind came a
mingled group of oxen, cows and calves, all driven by the sanguinary
butcher with whom he had refused to treat for his
favorites.

“Well, neighbor,” he said, thrusting his hand in his pocket
and drawing thence a greasy leathern pouch, “I see you have
kept the cattle for me after all.”

At first Helph positively declined selling them, but he did
not want them; it was very uncertain when there would be an
opportunity of disposing of them as he wished, and when the
butcher added something to his first liberal offer, he replied,
“I suppose, sir, you will have to take them.” Riding into the

yard, he drove them roughly forth with whip and voice, from
the manger of hay and the deep bed of straw. They were free
from the yoke, and yet they came side by side, and with their
heads bowed close together, just as they had been accustomed
to work. Passing their young master, they turned towards him
their great mournful eyes, reproachfully, he thought, and crushing
the price of them in his hand, he walked hastily in the direction
of the house.

“The bad, old wretch,” exclaimed Ellen, looking after the
butcher, as she stood on the porch, wiping her eyes with the
sleeve of the shirt she was making; and just within the door sat
Aunt Wetherbe, her face half concealed within a towel, and
crying like a child.

A week more, and Helph was gone, Ellen still remaining
with the old people, till they should get a little accustomed to
their desolate home. The tears shed over his departure were
not yet dry, for he had left in the morning and it was now
dusky evening, when, as the little family assembled round the
tea-table, he entered, with a hurried and anxious manner that
seemed to preface some dismal tidings.

Poor youth! his heart was almost breaking. He had no concealments
now, and very frankly told the story of his love, and
what had been his purposes for the future. Mr. and Mrs. Randall
had suddenly given up their house, gone abroad, and taken
Jenny with them, under pretext of giving her a thorough education
in England. But the young lover felt instinctively that she
was separated from him for a widely different purpose. And
poor faithful Aunt Kitty, she had been dismissed without a shilling
above her scanty earnings, to work, old and disabled as she
was, or die like a beggar. After much inquiry, he had learned
that she had obtained an engagement at an asylum, as an attendant
on the sick.

“Dear old soul!” said Aunt Wetherbe, “you must go right
away in the morning and bring her here; she shan't be left to
suffer, and I know of it.”

“Never mind—all will come out bright,” said Ellen, as Helph
sat that night on the porch, alone and sorrowful.

But he would not be comforted: Jenny had not left a single

line to give him assurance and hope, and even if she tnought of
him now, she would forget him in the new life that was before
her. All this was plausible, but Ellen's efforts were not entirely
without effect; and when she offered to go with him to the city
and see Aunt Kitty, who perhaps might throw some light on
the sudden movement, he began to feel hopeful and cheerful
almost: for of all eyes, those of a lover are the quickest to see
light or darkness.

Some chance prevented the fulfilment of Ellen's promise, and
I was commissioned by her to perform the task she had proposed
for herself. “It will help to keep him up, like,” she said, “if
you go along.” A day or two intervened before I could conveniently
leave home, but at last we set out, on a clear frosty
morning of the late autumn. Behind the one seat of the little
wagon in which we rode, was placed an easy chair for Aunt
Kitty. A brisk drive of an hour brought us to the hospital;
and pleasing ourselves with thoughts of the happy surprise we
were bringing to the poor forlorn creature, we entered the
parlor, and on inquiry were told we had come too late—she
had died half an hour before our arrival, in consequence of
a fall received the previous evening in returning from the dead-house,
whither she had assisted in conveying a body. “I have
ordered her to be decently dressed,” said the superintendent,
“from my own things; she was so good, I thought that little
enough to do for her;” and she led the way to the sick ward,
where Aunt Kitty awaited to be claimed and buried by her
friends. It was a room fifty or sixty feet long, and twenty
perhaps in width, lined on either side with a long row of narrow
dirty beds, some of them empty, but most of which were
filled with pale and miserable wretches—some near dying,
some groaning, some propped on pillows and seeming stolidly
to regard the fate of others and of themselves. The sun
streamed hot through the uncurtained windows, and the atmosphere
was pervaded with offensive smells.

As my eye glanced down the long tiers of beds where there
was so much suffering, it was arrested by the corpse of the
poor old woman—gone at last to that land where there are no
more masters, no more servants. I shuddered and stood still

as the two shrivelled and haglike women wrapped and pinned
the sheet about the stiffening limbs, with as much glee, imbecile
almost, but frightful, as they apparently were capable of feeling
or expressing. “What in Heaven's name are you laughing
at?” said Helph, approaching them. “Just to think of
sarving a dead nigger!” said one, with a revolting simper; but
looking in his face, she grew respectful with a sudden recollection,
and drew from her pocket a sealed letter, saying, “May
be you can tell who this is for—we found it in her bosom when
we went to dress her.” It was a letter from Jenny to himself:
poor Aunt Kitty had been faithful to the last.

Not till I was turning from that terriblest shelter of woe I
ever saw, did I notice a young and pale-cheeked girl, sitting
near the door, on a low and rude rocking-chair, and holding
close to her bosom an infant but a few days old: not with a
mother's pride, I fancied, for her eyes drooped before the glance
of mine, and a blush burned in her cheek, as though shame and
not honor covered her young maternity. I paused a moment,
praised the baby, and spoke some kindly words to her; but she
bowed her head lower and lower on her bosom, speaking not a
word; and seeing that I only gave her pain, I passed on, with a
spirit more saddened for the living than for the dead, who had
died in such wretchedness.

Jenny's letter proved a wonderful comfort to Helph, and
cheerfulness and elasticity gradually came back to him; but
when, at the expiration of a year, his parents returned without
her, and bringing a report of her marriage, all courage, all
ambition, deserted him, and many a summer and winter went
by, during which he lived in melancholy isolation.

I shall not attempt to write the history of Jenny Mitchel,
except thus much, which had some relation to our life at Clovernook;
and therefore pass abruptly into the future of my
good friend Randall. Nearly fifteen years were gone since his
sweetheart crossed the sea, and country belles had bloomed
and faded before his eyes, without winning from him special
regard: when, as he sat before a blazing hickory fire one evening,
waiting for Aunt Wetherbe, who still enjoyed a green old

age, to bring to the table the tea and short-cake, there was a
quick, lively tap on the door, and the next moment, in the full
maturity of womanhood, but blushing and laughing like the
girl of years ago, Jenny stood in the midst of the startled
group—Jenny Mitchel still! Helph had become a prosperous
man in the world, and had been envied for the good fortune
which his patient bravery so much deserved. The waves of
the sea of human life had reached out gradually from the city
until they surrounded his blacksmith's shop, and covered all
his lots as if with silver; and he had been building, all the previous
year, a house so beautiful, and with such fair accessories,
as to astonish all the neighborhood acquainted in any degree
with his habits or reputed temper. “What does the anchorite
mean to do with such a place? he never speaks to a woman
more than he would to a ghost,” they said; “so he won't get
married; and nobody is so particular about a house to sell,
and it can't be he's going to stay in it all alone.” But Helph
knew very well what he was about, and was content to keep
his own counsel. If he had mailed certain letters out at Clovernook,
our postmaster would have guessed at once his secret;
but though Mr. Helphenstein Randall was very well known in
town, there were so many objects there to interest the common
attention that it was never observed when, every once in a
while, he bought a small draft on England, nor that he more
frequently sent letters east for the Atlantic steamers, nor that
he received as frequently as there was foreign news in the
papers, missives, every month more neatly folded and with
finer superscriptions. He had been thought something of a
philosopher, by Ellen Blake and I, and others were convinced,
perhaps by justifying reasons, that he was as little impressible
by woman's charms as the cattle in his stalls. But there are
not so many philosophers in the world as some pretend, and
his heart was all aglow with pictures of one on whom he
looked in dreams and in the distant perfumed gardens of
his hope. Jenny, deserted, and struggling with all the adversities
that throng the way of a poor girl alone in so great a city,
had written at length from London all the story of her treatment
by her lover's parents, and having time for reflection
before he could answer her letter—provoking all his nature
to joy and scorn—he had decided that she should not come
back until she could do so with such graces and accomplishments
as should make her the wonder and him the envy of all
who had contrived or wished their separation. He had trusted
her, educated her, and at last had all the happiness of which
his generous heart was capable.

Ellen Blake of course presided at the wedding, and the
quilts quilted that night at Aunt Wetherbe's had been kept
unused for a present to Helph's wife on her bridal night.
When I am down in the city I always visit the Randalls, and
there is not in the Valley of the West another home so pleassant,
so harmonious, so much like what I trust to share in
heaven.