 | Mosses from an old manse |  |
THE OLD APPLE-DEALER.
The lover of the moral picturesque may sometimes find what he
seeks in a character, which is, nevertheless, of too negative a
description to be seized upon, and represented to the imaginative
vision by word-painting. As an instance, I remember an old man
who carries on a little trade of gingerbread and apples, at the
depot of one of our railroads. While awaiting the departure of
the cars, my observation, flitting to and fro among the livelier
characteristics of the scene, has often settled insensibly upon this
almost hueless object. Thus, unconsciously to myself, and unsuspected
by him, I have studied the old apple-dealer, until he
has become a naturalized citizen of my inner world. How little
would he imagine—many a beautiful face—has flitted before me, and
vanished like a shadow. It is a strange witchcraft, whereby
this faded and featureless old apple-dealer has gained a settlement
in my memory!
He is a small man, with grey hair and grey stubble beard, and
is invariably clad in a shabby surtout of snuff-color, closely buttoned,
and half-concealing a pair of grey pantaloons; the whole
dress, though clean and entire, being evidently flimsy with much
wear. His face, thin, withered, furrowed, and with features
which even age has failed to render impressive, has a frost-bitten
could counteract. The summer sunshine may fling
its white heat upon him, or the good fire of the depot-room may
make him hte focus of its blaze, on a winter's day; but all in
vain; for still the old man looks as if he were in a frosty atmosphere,
with scarcely warmth enough to keep life in the region
about his heart. It is a patient, long-suffering, quiet, hopeless,
shivering aspect. He is not desperate—that, though its etymology
implies no more, would be too positive an expression—but merely
devoid of hope. As all his past life, probably, offers no spots of
brightness to his memory, so he takes his present poverty and discomfort
as entirely a matter of course; he thinks it the definition
of existence, so far as himself is concerned, to be poor, cold, and
uncomfortable. It may be added, that time has not thrown dignity,
as a mantle, over the old man's figure; there is nothing
venerable about him; you pity him without a scruple.
He sits on a bench in the depot-room; an before him, on the
floor, are deposited two baskets, of a capacity to contain his whole
stock in trade. Across, from one basket to the other, extends a
board, on which is displayed a plate of cakes and gingerbread,
some russet and red checked apples, and a box containing variegated
sticks of candy; together with that delectable condiment,
known by children as Gibraltar rock, neatly done up in white
paper. There is likewise a half-peck measure of cracked walnuts,
and two or three tin half-pints or gills, filled with the nut
kernels, ready for purchasers. Such are the small commodities
with which our old friend comes daily before the world, ministeringto
its petty needs and little freaks of appetite, and seeking
thence the solid subsistence—so far as he may subsist—of his
life.
A slight observer would speak of the old man's quietude.
But, on closer scrutiny, you discover there there is a continual
unrest within him, which somewhat resembles the fluttering
departed. Though he never exhibits any violent action, and,
indeed, might appear to be sitting quite still, yet you perceive,
when his minuter peculiarities begin to be detected, that he is
always making some little movement or other. He looks anxiously
at his plate of cakes, or pyramid of apples, and slightly
alters their arrangement, with an evident idea that a great deal
depends on their being disposed exactly thus and so. Then, for
a moment, he gazes out of the window; then he shivers, quietly,
and folds his arms across his breast, as if to draw himself closer
within himself, and thus keep a flicker of warmth in his lonesome
heart. Now he turns again to his merchandise of cakes, apples,
and candy, and discovers that this cake or that apple, or yonder
stick of red and white candy, has, somehow, got out of its proper
position. And is there not a walnut-kernel too many, or too few,
in one of those small tin measures? Again, the whole arrangement
appears to be settled to his mind; but, in the course of a
minute or two, there will assuredly be something to set right.
At times, by an indescribable shadow upon his features—too
quiet, however, to be noticed, until you are familiar with his
ordinary aspect—the expression of frost-bitten, patient despondency
becomes very touching. It seems as if, just at that instant, the
suspicion occurred to him, that, in his chill decline of life, earning
scanty bread by selling cakes, apples, and candy, he is a very
miserable old fellow.
But, if he think so, it is a mistake. He can never suffer the
extreme of misery, because the tone of his whole being is too
much subdued for him to feel anything acutely.
Occasionally, one of the passengers, to while away a tedious
interval, approaches the old man, inspects the articles upon his
board, and even peeps curiously into the two baskets. Another,
striding to and fro along the room, throws a look at the apples and
gingerbread, at every turn. A third, it may be, of a more sensitive
cautious not to excite expectations of a purchaser, while yet undetermined
whether to buy. But there appears to be no need
of such a scrupulous regard to our old friend's feelings. True,
he is conscious of the remote possibility of selling a cake or an
apple, but innumerable disappointments have rendered him so far
a philosopher, that, even if the purchased article should be returned,
he will consider it altogether in the ordinary train of
events. He speaks to none, and makes no sign of offering his
wares to the public; not that he is deterred by pride, but by the
certain conviction that such demonstrations would not increase
his custom. Besides, this activity in business would require an
energy that never could have been a characteristic of his almost
passive disposition, even in youth. Whenever an actual customer
appears, the old man looks up with a patient eye; if the price
and the article are approved, he is ready to make change; otherwise,
his eyelids droop again, sadly enough, but with no heavier
despondency than before. He shivers, perhaps, folds his lean
arms around his lean body, and resumes the life-long, frozen patience,
in which consists his strength. Once in a while, a schoolboy
comes hastily up, places a cent or two upon the board, and
takes up a cake or stick of candy, or a measure of walnuts, or an
apple as red cheeked as himself. There are no words as to price,
that being as well known to the buyer as to the seller. The old
apple-dealer never speaks an unnecessary word; not that he is
sullen and morose; but there is none of the cheeriness and briskness
in him, that stirs up people to talk.
Not seldom, he is greeted by some old neighbor, a man well-to-do
in the world, who makes a civil, patronizing observation
about the weather; and then, by way of performing a charitable
deed, begins to chaffer for an apple. Our friend presumes not
on any past acquaintance; he makes the briefest possible response
to all general remarks, and shrinks quietly into himself again.
the basket another cake, another stick of candy, another apple,
or another measure of walnuts, to supply the place of the article
sold. Two or three attempts—or, perchance, half a dozen—are
requisite, before the board can be re-arranged to his satisfaction.
If he have received a silver coin, he waits till the purchaser is
out of sight, then examines it closely, and tries to bend it with his
finger and thumb; finally, he puts it into his waistcoat pocket,
with seemingly a gentle sigh. This sigh, so faint as to be hardly
perceptible, and not expressive of any definite emotion, is the accompaniment
and conclusion of all his actions. It is the symbol
of the chillness and torpid melancholy of his old age, which only
make themselves felt sensibly, when his repose is slightly disturbed.
Our man of gingerbread and apples is not a specimen of the
“needy man who has seen better days.” Doubtless, there have
been better and brighter days in the far-off time of his youth; but
none with so much sunshine of prosperity in them, that the chill,
the depression, the narrowness of means, in his declining years,
can have come upon him by surprise. His life has all been of
a piece. His subdued and nerveless boyhood prefigured his
abortive prime, which, likewise, contained within itself the prophecy
and image of his lean and torpid age. He was perhaps a
mechanic, who never came to be a master in his craft, or a petty
tradesman, rubbing onward between passably-to-do and poverty.
Possibly, he may look back to some brilliant epoch of his career,
when there were a hundred or two of dollars to his credit, in the
Savings Bank. Such must have been the extent of his better
fortune—his little measure of this world's triumphs—all that he
has known of success. A meek, downcast, humble, uncomplaining
creature, he probably has never felt himself entitled to more
than so much of the gifts of Providence. Is it not still something,
that he has never held out his hand for charity, nor has yet been
broken-spirited children, the alms-house? He cherishes no quarrel,
therefore, with his destiny, nor with the Author of it. All is
as it should be.
If, indeed, he have been bereaved of a son—a bold, energetic,
vigorous young man, on whom the father's feeble nature leaned,
as on a staff of strength—in that case, he may have felt a bitterness
that could not otherwise have been generated in his heart.
But methinks, the joy of possessing such a son, and the agony of
losing him, would have developed the old man's moral and intellectual
nature to a much greater degree than we now find it.
Intense grief appears to be as much out of keeping with his life,
as fervid happiness.
To confess the truth, it is not the easies matter in the world
to define and individualize a character like this which we are
now handling. The portrait must be so generally negative, that
the most delicate pencil is likely to spoil it by introducing some
too positive tint. Every touch must be kept down, or else you
destroy the subdued tone, which is absolutely essential to the
whole effect. Perhaps more may be done by contrast, than by
direct description. For this purpose, I make use of another cake-and-candy
merchant, who likewise infests the railroad depot.
This latter worthy is a very smart and well-dressed boy, of ten
years old or thereabouts, who skips briskly hither and thither,
addressing the passengers in a pert voice, yet with somewhat of
good breeding in his tone and pronunciation. Now he has caught
my eye, and skips across the room with a pretty pertness, which
I should like to correct with a box on the ear. “Any cake, sir?
—any candy?”
No; none for me, my lad. I did but glance at your brisk
figure, in order to catch a reflected light, and throw it upon your
old rival yonder.
Again, in order to invest my conception of the old man with a
intensest bustle, on the arrival of the cars. The shriek of the
engine, as it rushes into the car-house, is the utterance of the
steam-fiend, whom man has subdued by magic spells, and compels
to serve as a beast of burden. He has skimmed rivers in his
headlong rush, dashed through forests, plunged into the hearts of
mountains, and glanced from the city to the desert-place, and
again to a far-off city, with a meteoric progress, seen, and out of
sight, while his reverberating roar still fills the ear. The travellers
swarm forth from the cars. All are full of the momentum
which they have caught from their mode of conveyance. It
seems as if the whole world, both morally and physically, were
detached from its old standfasts, and set in rapid motion. And, in
the midst of this terrible activity, there sits the old man of ginger-bread,
so subdued, so hopeless, so without a stake in life, and yet
not positively miserable—there he sits, the forlorn old creature,
one chill and sombre day after another, gathering scanty coppers
for his cakes, apples and candy—there sits the old apple-dealer,
in his threadbare suit of snuff-color and grey, and his grisly stubble-beard.
See! he folds his lean arms around his lean figure,
with that quiet sigh, and that scarcely perceptible shiver, which
are the tokens of his inward state. I have him now. He and
the steam-fiend are each other's antipodes; the latter is the type
of all that go ahead—and the old man, the representative of that
melancholy class who, by some sad witchcraft, are doomed never
to share in the world's exulting progress. Thus the contrast
between mankind and this desolate brother becomes picturesque,
and even sublime.
And now farewell, old friend! Little do you suspect that a
student of human life has made your character the theme of more
than one solitary and thoughtful hour. Many would say, that
you have hardly individuality enough to be the object of your
own self-love. How, then, can a stranger's eye detect anything
I read but a tithe of what is written there, it would be a volume
of deeper and more comprehensive import than all that the wisest
mortals have given to the world; for the soundless depths of the
human sould, and of eternity, have an opening through your breast.
God be praised, were it only for your sake, that the present shapes
of human existence are not cast in iron, nor hewn in everlasting
adamant, but moulded of the vapors that vanish away while the
essence flits upward to the infinite. There is a spiritual essence
in this grey and lean old shape that shall flit upward too. Yes;
doubtless there is a region, where the life-long shiver will pass
away from his being, and that quiet sigh, which it has taken him
so many years to breathe, will be brought to a close for good and
all.
| Mosses from an old manse | |