University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.
HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

Richard's chief joy was his nieces; and his Sundays, and
meal-times, and evenings, that gave him to them. He
played with them, and they made a child of him; nay,
they made less than that; they used him as if he had been
a giant moppet in whiskers, and tumbled him about like a
man of straw. He was the child, and they were the masters.
He must listen to their wants, obey their commands,
bide their caprices, go where they wished, do what they
ordered; they climbed up his chair, tore at his legs, rode
on his back, pilfered his pockets, hid his boots. He brought
blocks for them to build houses with, allotted a quarter of
the garden for their agricultural operations, put up a swing
for them on the willow-tree. Sundays, after church, he
went with them to Bill Stonners' Point, to see Chuk, and
through the woods to Mysie's. He filled their baskets with
box-berries and partridge-berries, and adorned their hats
with bellworts and laurels. To Chuk the children were
an intelligence, — an incantation, — a glimmering of long-lost
ideas. Mysie showed them her cats and cows.

To add to the wonders, — a wonder it was to Memmy,
and a real wonder it might be to the universe, — Bebby began
to talk! The teeth came, and the talk would soon follow.
This was Memmy's philosophy; and is it not as
good as anybody's? Who can explain the mystery of
speech? Is it not God's miracle? To witness this dull
clay putting itself into tune, — to see unconscious muscle

adapting itself to articulation; ideas seizing upon corruptible
flesh and blood, and converting it into a living organism;
to hear the short words, and the half-uttered long words,
and the endeavors after impossible words; and how innumerable
things seem, like bees about a hive, to fly about the
lips of the child, — some going in, some crawling on the edge,
and some falling back, and all keeping up such a buzz; —
oh, these were new things, and well worth reporting to Master
Willwell! And how Bebby's eyes would strain when
she tried to say something, and twinkle when she had said
something; and Memmy's would twinkle too, and so would
Roxy's and Munk's, and the twinkle would be contagious,
and go all round the room. This was pleasant.

And what would the child say? what would be the first
utterance of that which from eternity had been silent, or
which from other worlds had come to take up its abode in
this? What incipiency from the mystic depth of things
would start into being? It was “mamma” and “papa.”
These were the first shoots from that thaumatergical seedbed,
which was ultimately to produce such harvests of prattle,
ratiocination, poetry, and newspapers; — whereon would
that the dews of divine grace might descend, and adorn
them with heavenly beauty and sweetest charity!

She ere long perpetrated those dreadful words, “I will,”
and “I won't;” as if it were a crime to practise volition, and
presumption insupportable to be supposed capable of the prerogative
of free-agency, or to have any preference or aversion.
“Say `I had rather not,' ” enjoined the mother. “I
won't!” answered the child. “You will, won't you?” pleaded
the mother. “I wont!” reëchoed the child. Roxy turned
to her husband, and seemed to relieve her sorrow, saying,
“It is just as I always said, and what Elder Jabson teaches:
Children are wicked.” “Bebby wicked!” said Munk, stopping

what he was at — washing his face at the sink — and
looking round.

“Bebby is wicked.” Roxy said this, and was serene
again.

There is the nativity of ideas as well as words; and Richard,
being bound to inspect everything new, considered of
this also. Whether our ideas, for instance, of love and of
goodness, have a spiritual or material source, was a question
on which Master Willwell philanthropically descanted.
“You love Papa and Mamma,” said he to Memmy, in a sort
of leading way; “and whom else?” “I love,” replied the
child, “Bebby, and Uncle Richard, and — and — pussy, and
peaches.” He had a peach in his hand. “Why do you
love peaches?” He asked this in a playful manner, indeed,
but with earnestness of thought. “Because they are good,”
was the brief, yet, to the child, very complete, reply. “And
you love Papa because he is good?” The child assented.
This was a poser to Richard. Vainly did he invoke the
lessons of his Teacher. Was it one thing to the child, —
peaches or Papa? Was it the same goodness, or the same
sense of goodness? Both yielded pleasure. May it not be
that God awakens the sentiment of goodness, by affording to
sense and contemplation that which pleases us? But there
is a spiritual susceptibility of pleasure, as well as material;
both sets of instincts were stirred in the child, — only she was
not old enough to distinguish between them. So Richard
found, on inquiry, that she hated badness, whether in Turkey
rhubarb, or the neighbor's yelping dog, or drunken
Weasand.

Still, vast as these problems were, the children cared not
a straw for them; they had rather play hide-and-seek among
the trees than among abstractions. They loved play, and
nothing but play, Roxy insisted. “I love Mamma,” said

Memmy. “Me lub Mamma, too,” echoed Bebby, as she
stalked, with a made-up air of mixed pomposity and roguishness,
out of the room. Under the trees that Richard had
planted was their play-ground, and there they acted out
what their mother seemed to feel was their unhappy destiny,
— play.

Richard had set the trees, not at the corners of the yard,
not in straight lines, but in groups and curves; thus creating
many little in-and-out places for caprice and pastime to
practise in. “Look at the children among the trees,” he
called to his sister. She did look, and smiled. They were
nothing but her children, and these were nothing but trees;
they were children too, who, in the house, were so often a
sigh on her heart, or an annoyance to her hands; but now
they were pretty, — simply pretty, exquisitely pretty. She
felt this, and so did Richard; and they showed it by their
looks, since neither spoke.

Trees, considered as an avenue for the eye to traverse,
enhance the beauty of objects at the end of it. The reader
has looked through trees at water or the sky, and witnessed
this effect. Nature, like Art, seems to require a border, in
order to be finished. The dressmaker hems and ruffles;
the carpenter has his beads and pilasters; the painter never
rests till his piece is framed. This appears to be an ultimate
law. Whether Master Willwell attempted to explain
it, we know not. We do know he was wont to tell his pupils
there were such laws; stopping-places of thought, —
dykes in the seams where inquiry is ever mining. “Bread,”
said he, “is bread; and that is the whole thing. We may
say, indeed, it is a composition of flour, and yeast, and
water; but that is not it. Your mother's bread, that you
get, fresh and warm, every Wednesday afternoon, so sweet
in milk, — why, it is a primitive idea; it is bread, and that

is all we know about bread —” he looked down on the
bench of little children, who were agape to see whereto so
much wisdom tended, and added, “except to eat it.” So,
likewise, he would expatiate upon toads; “A batrachian reptile;
batrachia, naked body, and two feet; what is a toad?”
“We are all toads!” cried the class. “Clumsy, harmless.”
Here he paused. “Little babies are toads,” answered one
of the scholars. “Body warty and thick,” continued the
teacher; “now who is a toad?” “Peter Tubby!” cried a
bright boy. “Yes,” said the teacher, with an innocent
smile, “Peter Tubby is a toad. Nay,” he added, “a toad
is a toad; — repeat this in concert.” So the class repeated
it, and some went home singing, “A toad is a toad.” If we
should say, Nature loves a bordering, as it used to be said,
she abhorred a vacuum, we might state the whole truth.
An uninterrupted plane, — continuity of similar surface, vast,
monotonous, silent, — is intolerable. So a column must have
its cap, and a house its cornice; so along the edge of the
highway spring innumerable flowers, and on its margin the
forest is lavish of its foliage; so the sea is terminated by the
sky, and we look at the sky through vistas of embanked
and woofy cloud. Were you ever in a pine grove of a
bright moonlight night? How different from standing
upon a mountain at such a time! We recommend to any
one on an eminence, to go back from the brink thereof, and
stand in the forest, and look out through the breaks and
crevices. A moss-rose is an instance in point, — beautiful
because it is bordered; it is a landscape seen through trees.
A house in the midst of shrubbery is an instance; so are
islands in a pond; a view through half-raised window-curtains,
and distant scenery through a long suite of rooms;
so are light on foregrounds and shadows on backgrounds, in
all pictures. Glens, valleys, a flower in the grass, a star in
the sky, belong to the same category. So did Memmy and
Bebby, at this present speaking; they were bordered by
trees, — cedars and birches were about them, like curls on the
face of fair maiden; and one of Master Willwell's primitive
ideas turned up, — bread was bread; a toad was a toad; the
final sense was reached, and Richard and Roxy were pleased.
Then, in this case, the children were on the go, while the
bordering kept still; they were the picture, dancing up and
down in its frame; they were the blue sky, crisping and
rippling behind the clouds. This great beauty, which they
were, was now in the shadow, now in the shade; now its
straw hat and ruddy face gleamed through the green spray,
— now its silver, healthful voice carolled in ambuscade. It
ran round the trees that made it so beautiful; it halted in
front of that which set it off so behind; its fluttering was
seen through the depth of the little copse. A chipping
sparrow sang in the trees over it; Munk sat on the steps,
and pressed his arm very tight about his wife's waist as
he beheld it; passers-by stopped and leaned on the fence
to look at it.

Lo! now Bebby stands between, and partly screened by,
two little cedars, about as tall as she; — and how beautiful
she is; what a joy in her father's heart; what a glistening in
her mother's eyes; what a ravishment to Richard, all over,
she is, or the thing that she is! She is a moss-rose, — a
rose mossed, — bordered. Is the beauty herself, or her circumstances?

What is the principle herein involved? Some refer the
interest of this class of phenomena to ideas of Infinity. It
is a glimpse, an opening, into the vast, they tell us. But
why, if vastness be the ultimate sentiment, is partial vastness
more attractive than entire? Why curtain it, to
heighten the effect? What has Bebby's head, stuck through

those trees, to do with Infinity? I should call it, rather,
Limitation. It is rather the reduction of the Infinite to palpable
bounds, than an elevation of the Finite to the immeasurable.
Bebby runs away. Bebby is the same Bebby;
the trees are the same trees; but how different apart! The
rose has lost its moss; the view its border. Run back, little
additament! Throw yourself into the middle of the picture,
or what will be a picture when you get there! Consent to
be bordered. Those happy, blue eyes, — those flocculent,
foamy locks, — were they ever so pretty? The pea-green,
crinkly little cedars, — what enchantment they suddenly assume!
How the beauty flashes from one to the other, and
centres in the whole! How it vanishes when Bebby quits!
Memmy had gone to crawling in the grass, full of frolic and
laughter, and Bebby must do so too.

“You will green your drawers all up; come into the
house!” cried their mother.

This ended the scene.

Parson Smith's and Dr. Broadwell's Sunday-school children
and teachers were planning a union picnic, combined
with a rail-road ride and a sylvan meeting; and Richard
was going, and he wanted to take Memmy, and Memmy
wanted to go; but Roxy clouded. She feared what might
be the effect of her children associating with Parson Smith's
and Dr. Broadwell's; — they were aristocratic children; they
would slight and deride hers; Parson Smith's and Dr.
Broadwell's people felt themselves above Elder Jabson's, and
so on. But she said to her husband, and here she was more
positive, “They have n't clothes fit to go in, and you know
it!” Munk need not feign ignorance, or affect to poh the
matter off; he was sufficiently conscious of the state of
affairs. “Always,” continued his wife, “something is a
happening, and you are not such a man as you should be!”

“Do you want me to change into another man? — say into
Tunny, or Clover, or, if you like, into Elder Jabson?”
Munk did not say this in his usual, that is, a pleasant way,
but in an irritated way; he was roiled. Roxy flung her
apron over her eyes, slatted into a chair, and began to cry.
There seemed to be no coming to terms now. Munk
knocked his pipe on the andiron, and looked into it, — cool,
— rapped again, — stinging, — and when the ashes were all
out, he refilled and lighted it, and went to smoking, and
reading the evening Catapult, — past endurance. “You
wicked man, you!” His wife seemed almost to gnash at
him. Munk did not stir. “I guess Memmy's clothes will
do,” said Richard, in the way of oily interposition. — “I wish
you would ever have your shoes on!” Roxy addressed this
to the child, who, insensible to what was going on overhead,
was down on the floor, busily divesting herself of what
clothing she had. “She shall have a new hat,” said Munk.
“It was a black beaver, with plumes,” rejoined his wife.
“That was last winter!” explained the other.

“What if it was? It was all the same then as now.
We don't have anything! I wanted a Thibet shawl, small
figured, and you were not willing. Mrs. Xyphers had an ameline
at Tunny's; and what was I, what was I? Bobbin &
Shally advertise forty kinds of silks; and all of Dr. Broadwell's
folks are in there, — I have seen it with my own eyes!
The parlor curtains I am ashamed of! Mrs. Tunny says,
have silk damask and tulip pins, and would have if you
were worth as much as you are; and you are! Memmy
might have a China pearl!” An explosion; Munk stood
the shock tolerably well. “Memmy shall have a China pearl,
if that will satisfy you.” “If that will satisfy me, — as if
you had no feeling, and no sense of things, of yourself, —
as if all the blame must fall on me! Mrs. Mellow is a

woman and a Christian, if there ever was one! And her
house don't look like this; and I know what she thinks when
she is here, though she don't say anything!”

Here was a cloud, and a shower; and Richard was afraid
the children would get wet. “Do not say all this before
them,” he interceded.

“Yes, before them!” rejoined his sister. “They shall
know what a suffering mother they have! I wish I was dead!”

Memmy screamed, and Bebby screamed in sympathy;
Munk groaned, his wife sobbed. Richard took the children
out doors.

The upshot of the matter was a compromise; Roxy consented
to let Memmy go to the picnic, and Munk agreed
that his wife should have a fashionable dress.

In great spirits, of a clear morning, the children filed to
the depot and entered the cars. They rode on the banks of
the River, that now afforded lively glimpses through the
trees, now exposed its broad Siloam face, now withdrew
behind leafy headlands. They passed lumber-laden sloops,
steamboats, and merchandise packets. They went through
pretty towns, fruitful farms, and cool woods. They unloaded
at Sunny Hours, a grove so called. Here recreation enforced
itself, charity found its sphere, harmony attended freedom,
innocency sanctified mirth; clean grass and breezy shades
inspired exertion, and invited to repose. The children were
kind to Memmy, the teachers affable with Richard. Memmy
could run among the trees with any of them, and there is no
aristocracy in eating. Unitary sentiments were exchanged;
congratulations of mutual good feeling made; many hopes of
childhood, the Church, and the world, echoed. They sang
exultant songs, made earnest speeches, and returned.

Memmy got home safe, with her palm-leaf hat prettily
wreathed, and her gown soiled and torn. Roxy was not

sorry that she did not wear China pearl, and Munk promised
the child a new gingham; and going with Dr. Broadwell's
and Parson Smith's children turned out not so bad a
thing, after all.

The parlor at Munk's was a hidden room, — an inner sanctuary,
— a Blue Beard's chamber; and Richard longed to
get into it. It was the largest and the pleasantest room in the
house, and he longed to enjoy it. But it was stepping on
corns to say anything about it. The room was not open
long enough for ventilation, and Richard declared the straw
under the carpet was musty, and smelled damp and close.
The buzzing of a venturesome fly alone relieved the stillness
of the spot; and a spider, not having the fear of Roxy before
his eyes, was setting his traps to catch the fly. But the
children would litter the carpet, soil the sofa, scratch the
chairs, disturb the things on the table.

Munk was satisfied with the kitchen, because he could
smoke, lean against the wall, put his feet on the stove-hearth,
sit in his shirt-sleeves, — in a word, be what he liked to be, a
free man, — better there than in the parlor; and he did not
mix with the controversy.

The street-bell rang, and Richard answering it, encountered
Mrs. Mellow, the lady to whom Roxy so often referred.
She was the Secretary of a Home Inspection Society, and
distributor of its tracts. She was well dressed, had a patronizing
air, a soft, gentle voice, blue eyes, and her face
seemed all made up of tender-line and goodness. When
Roxy knew who had called, like a dozen girls let loose from
school, she dispersed in all directions at once; she chased
the dust-brush, washed the children's faces, swept the hearth,
shut the table-drawer, and hurrying into the bed-room to
adjust her toilette, rapped and righted the pillows on the
bed, and smoothed the window-curtains. Not that Mrs.

Mellow was in the bed-room, or likely to be; but she was
in the house, and Roxy acted as if she felt she was all over
the house. These matters being attended to, she presented
herself in the parlor. Honored as she deemed herself by
the call, she was in no state to do justice to it. Nervous,
bungling, confused, as if she feared the walls of the
room would fall in and crush her visiter, and she had no
power to admonish her of the danger, she stiffly returned the
salutations of the lady, who took her sweetly by the hand,
and went so far as to kiss her. The customary domestic
inquiries ensued in routine, until the children were reached.
But these were on hand to report for themselves. They
bounced into the room, and like captives set free, they made
a wild and rude demonstration of their joy. “Come to me,
little one,” said Mrs. Mellow, holding out a blue-gloved
hand on her silken knee. But Memmy was busy with a
gilt-edged book she had snatched from the table, and Bebby
was urging a chair towards the same forbidden height.
“They act so!” said Roxy, making vicarious confession for
the young transgressors, at the same time taking the book
from Memmy, and the chair from Bebby. “Won't you go
and see the lady?” she besought them. Bebby was rolling
on the carpet, pulling at Memmy's gown, who screamed to
free herself. “They always behave worse before company,”
explained their mother. “I always said — ” “What have
you said?” asked Mrs. Mellow. “Nothing,” answered
Roxy, “only I used to think how children ought to behave
in company. I do believe we have the worst children
that ever was!” “That depends a good deal on circumstances,”
replied Mrs. Mellow. “Do you teach them
obedience?”

“I endeavor to,” said Roxy, “but they beat me out of it.
I am not so well sustained as I think I ought to be.” She

glanced at Richard, who, having been requested by Mrs.
Mellow to sit, had remained in the room.

“One should never give up to children.” Mrs. Mellow
said this positively.

“Never?” asked Roxy. “Never. When you have laid
down a rule, adhere to it.”

“What if the rule is a bad one?” queried Richard.

Mrs. Mellow, unlike herself, bridled at this, and looked
sharply at Richard. But Richard was not pierced; and perhaps
because he was not, the lady remarked, as if it was
the most effective thing she could do, she was sorry to see
our young men, and laboring men too, imbibing transcendental
notions; at the same time tendering Richard a tract,
which she said she hoped would teach him humility and the
fear of God. Richard accepted the tract, and unceremoniously
left the room.

“I fear for that brother of yours, Mrs. Munk,” said Mrs.
Mellow.

Now, Roxy, however she might view and feel some things,
loved Richard, and was proud of him, and was wont to hear
people speak well of him; and though she sometimes
blamed him to his face, she had no idea anybody else would
do so to hers; and while she entertained a profound regard,
and an almost servile reverence, for Mrs. Mellow, the language
of that lady served to jar the awe in which she stood,
and set her upon a train of independent thinking. Still,
she made no reply, and in a short time her caller left.
Moreover, she thought Mrs. Mellow reflected on her condition
in life, and that of her brother, as belonging to the
laboring class; and this was grievous. Mrs. Mellow had
never done such a thing before. She was rich, and she
belonged to the best church, and the best society, and lived
in an elegant house; and Roxy thought she was an uncommon

Christian, and never before, through the suaviloquy of
patronage and condescension, had the sting of derision appeared.
It was as if the dove concealed a serpent's tongue,
and Roxy felt herself bitten.

Still the sentiment of Mrs. Mellow, “Never yield to a
child,” and the query of Richard, “What if it be a bad
rule?” weighed in her mind.

The subject of the freedom of the parlor came up in conversation,
a short time afterwards. “I always said I would
have a best room,” observed Roxy. “That is the best room,”
replied Richard, “which answers its purpose best, and contributes
most to the enjoyment of the family. Sometimes
the kitchen is the best room.” “Yes,” said Munk, not
looking from his paper, “be good and happy, — only be happy,
that's all.” “The best room,” continued Richard, “on the
present basis, is the worst room — one that affords the least
satisfaction of any in the house. You are obliged, Roxy, to
defend it as it were with a broomstick against your children,
from morning to night.”

“But,” answered his sister, “I have made it a rule that
they shall never go into the parlor except we have company.
They will remember this rule, and I shall seem to yield to
them.”

“What and if you actually yield to them? It will be, as
Pastor Harold used to say a concession of arrangement to
affection, — of economy to happiness. It may be an exchange
of what is purely whimsical or fashionable, for what is useful
and salutary. How the children are tried and tempted
by that room; how often it proves too strong for their virtue;
how their inclinations are teazed, and their humors blackened,
by your regulation! Take rainy days, and washing
days, and busy days, — the kitchen is too small for the children
and you, and the parlor is full of sunshine, and green-sward,

and blithe freedom to them; but they must forego it
all, and stay here in the suds. Would it be right to set a plate
of cake on that chair, and keep it uncovered before the children
for a week, and forbid them to touch it, and punish
them for touching it? That parlor is a great plate of cake,
and peaches and pears besides, to them. You say they
spoil things. That is because they are not used to them.
Familiarity with the contents of the room would moderate
the excitement of novelty. It is the rarity of entrance that
leads the children to abuse it so. This is according to Mr.
Willwell, who says, the more you hide things from people,
the more they want to see them.”

“But I have said they should n't,” answered Roxy.

“What if you said wrong? That is the question. May
a parent never do wrong, or impose a wrong command? If
he has done so, he ought to retract, I think. In doing
wrong, you violate God's law, disturb your own feelings, and
confound the moral perceptions of the children. On the
other hand, while you seem to stoop to the children, you are
really rising to the heights of absolute rectitude; and if they
appear for the moment to gain a triumph over you, they
would soon find they had only arrived at a natural and
simple position; and instead of using it as an advantage, it
would rather humble them by its responsibility. Parental
concession is provocative of filial obedience. That is Pastor
Harold again; I have his sermons by heart.”

“You will `Pastor Harold' me to death!” rejoined Roxy.

“He would kill you by love, as he did me once. But
that is the true Resurrection. Die to sin, that we may live
to holiness. Be firm in what is right, reasonable in what
is doubtful, but give up in what is wrong, — that is his
doctrine. Look into your own heart, Roxy, and see what
your motives are, in this thing. Do you keep the parlor

shut for the good of your children, or for the prosperity
of your house, or even for any reasons of comfort or edification?
Is it not solely for the world, — because you are
ambitious to have as good a parlor as Mrs. Tunny, or from
fear of what Mrs. Mellow will think, or from a prurient
desire to have the reputation of keeping a handsome parlor?
You talk a good deal about the aristocracy, and pride-and-vanity
folk, and worldly-minded professors; and you think
you belong to a very humble and self-denying church; but
it seems to me you commit more sin, and betray more folly,
about your parlor, a hundred fold, than the Mayor's wife,
in allowing dancing at her house, for which you censured
her so; or the Redferns, in taking the fine house in Victoria
Square, and who, you have said, were so abandoned to
the idolatry of this world.”

Roxy oh-deared; and Richard, not knowing but he was
pressing the subject too closely, dropped it.

Roxy was easily persuaded; and perhaps that was one
source of the infelicity of her life. When she left her country
home, the city persuaded her; when she began to assume
a church relation, Elder Jabson persuaded her; when
she went into society, Mrs. Tunny persuaded her; — sometimes
it was Aunt Grint; sometimes it was a thunder-storm.
Her husband once had great influence with her;
but she had got used to him, — he had lost his seasoning, his
piquancy, his forcefulness, to her; a word from Elder Jabson
outweighed whole sermons of Asa's. But Richard was
a fresh ministry, — there was at least the raciness and edge
of novelty to his words, and she was disposed to be persuaded
once more.

It was agreed that the room should be thrown open, and
all rejoiced in the prospective enlargement.