University of Virginia Library

UNCLE TIM.

And so I am to write a story—but of what and
where? Shall it be radiant with the sky of Italy,
or eloquent with the beau ideal of Greece? Shall
it breathe odour and languor from the orient, or
chivalry from the occident? or gayety from France,
or vigour from England? No, no: these are all too
old—too romance like—too obviously picturesque
for me. No: let me turn to my own land—my
own New-England; the land of bright fires and
strong hearts; the land of deeds and not of words;
the land of fruits and not of flowers; the land often
spoken against, yet always respected; “the
latchet of whose shoes the nations of the earth are
not worthy to unloose.”

Now, from this very heroic apostrophe, you may
suppose that I have something very heroic to tell.
By no means. It is merely a little introductory
breeze of patriotism, such as occasionally brushes
over every mind, bearing on its wings the remembrance
of all we ever loved or cherished in the land
of our early years; and if it should seem to be rhodomontade
to any people on the other side of the

mountains, let them only imagine it to be said about
“Old Kentuck,” or any other corner of the world
in which they happened to be born, and they will
find it quite rational.

But, as touching our story, it is time to begin.
Did you ever see the little village of Newbury, in
New-England? I dare say you never did; for it
was just one of those out-of-the-way places where
nobody ever came unless they came on purpose:
a green little hollow, wedged like a bird's nest between
half a dozen high hills, that kept off the
wind and kept out foreigners; so that the little
place was as straitly “sui generis” as if there
were not another in the world. The inhabitants
were all of that respectable old standfast family
who make it a point to be born, bred, married, die,
and be buried all in the selfsame spot. There
were just so many houses, and just so many people
lived in them; and nobody ever seemed to be sick,
or to die either—at least while I was there. The
natives grew old till they could not grow any older,
and then they stood still, and lasted from generation
to generation. There was, too, an unchangeability
about all the externals of Newbury. Here
was a red house, and there was a brown house,
and across the way was a yellow house; and there
was a straggling rail fence or a tribe of mullen
stalks between. The parson lived here, and Squire

Moses lived there, and Deacon Hart lived under
the hill, and Messrs. Nadab and Abihu Peters
lived by the crossroad, and the old “widder”
Smith lived by the meeting-house, and Ebenezer
Camp kept a shoemaker's shop on one side, and
Patience Mosely kept a milliner's shop in front;
and there was old Comfort Scran, who kept store for
the whole town, and sold axe-heads, brass thimbles,
liquorice ball, fancy handkerchiefs, and everything
else you can think of. Here, too, was the general
postoffice, where you might see letters marvellously
folded, directed wrong side upward, stamped
with a thimble, and superscribed to some of the
Dollys, or Pollys, or Peters, or Moseses aforenamed
or not named.

For the rest, as to manners, morals, arts, and
sciences, the people in Newbury always went to
their parties at three o'clock in the afternoon, and
came home before dark; always stopped all work
the minute the sun was down on Saturday night;
always went to meeting on Sunday, had a schoolhouse
with all the ordinary inconveniences; were
in neighbourly charity with each other; read their
Bibles, feared their God, and were content with
such things as they had—the best philosophy, after
all. Such was the place into which Master James
Benton made an irruption in the year eighteen
hundred and no matter what. Now this James is

to be our hero, and he is just the hero for a sensation—at
least so you would have thought, if you
had been in Newbury the week after his arrival.
Master James was one of those whole-hearted, energetic
Yankees, who rise in the world as naturally as
cork does in water. He possessed a great share
of that characteristic national trait so happily denominated
“cuteness,” which signifies an ability
to do everything without trying, and to know everything
without learning, and to make more use
of one's ignorance than other people do of their
knowledge. This quality in James was mingled
with an elasticity of animal spirits, a buoyant
cheerfulness of mind, which, though found in the
New-England character perhaps as often as anywhere
else, is not ordinarily regarded as one of its
distinguishing traits.

As to the personal appearance of our hero, we
have not much to say of it—not half so much as
the girls in Newbury found it necessary to remark,
the first Sabbath that he shone out in the meeting-house.
There was a saucy frankness of countenance,
a knowing roguery of eye, a joviality and
prankishness of demeanour, that was wonderfully
captivating, especially to the ladies.

It is true that Master James had an uncommonly
comfortable opinion of himself, a full faith that
there was nothing in creation that he could not

learn and could not do; and this faith was maintained
with an abounding and triumphant joyfulness,
that fairly carried your sympathies along with
him, and made you feel quite as much delighted
with his qualifications and prospects as he felt himself.
There are two kinds of self-sufficiency; one
is amusing, and the other is provoking. His was
the amusing kind. It seemed, in truth, to be only
the buoyancy and overflow of a vivacious mind,
delighted with everything that is delightful, in himself
or others. He was always ready to magnify
his own praise, but quite as ready to exalt his
neighbour, if the channel of discourse ran that
way: his own perfections being more completely
within his knowledge, he rejoiced in them
more constantly; but, if those of any one else
came within the same range, he was quite as
much astonished and edified as if they had been
his own.

Master James, at the time of his transit to the
town of Newbury, was only eighteen years of age,
so that it was difficult to say which predominated
in him most, the boy or the man. The belief
that he could, and the determination that he would
be something in the world, had caused him to abandon
his home, and, with all his worldly effects tied
in a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief, to proceed to
seek his fortune in Newbury. And never did stranger

in Yankee village rise to promotion with more
unparalleled rapidity, or boast a greater plurality of
employment. He figured as schoolmaster all the
week, and as chorister on Sundays, and taught singing
and reading in the evenings, besides studying
Latin and Greek with the minister, nobody knew
when; thus fitting for college, while he seemed
to be doing everything else in the world besides.

James understood every art and craft of popularity,
and made himself mightily at home in all
the chimney corners of the region round about;
knew the geography of everybody's cider-barrel
and apple-bin, helping himself and every one else
therefrom with all bountifulness; rejoicing in the
good things of this life, devouring the old ladies'
doughnuts and pumpkin pies with most flattering
appetite, and appearing equally to relish every body
and thing that came in his way.

The degree and versatility of his acquirements
were truly wonderful. He knew all about arithmetic
and history, and all about catching squirrels
and planting corn; made poetry and hoe-handles
with equal celerity; wound yarn and took out
grease spots for old ladies, and made nosegays
and knick-knacks for young ones; caught trout
Saturday afternoons, and discussed doctrines on
Sundays, with equal adroitness and effect. In
short, Mr. James moved on through the place

welcomed and privileged by everybody in every
place; and when he had told his last ghost-story,
and fairly flourished himself out of doors at the
close of a long winter's evening, you might see the
hard face of the good man of the house still phosphorescent
with his departing radiance, and hear
him exclaim, in a paroxysm of admiration, that
“Jemeses talk re'ely did beat all—that he was sartinly
most a miraculous cre'tur!”

It was wonderfully contrary to the buoyant activity
of Master James's mind to keep a school.
He had, moreover, so much of the boy and the
rogue in his composition, that he could not be
strict with the iniquities of the curly pates under
his charge; and when he saw how determinately
every little heart was boiling over with mischief
and motion, he felt in his soul more disposed to join
in and help them to a frolic, than to lay justice to
the line, as was meet. This would have made a
sad case, had it not been that the activity of the
master's mind communicated itself to his charge,
just as the reaction of one brisk little spring will
fill a manufactory with motion; so that there was
more of an impulse towards study in the golden
good-natured day of James Benton, than in the time
of all that went before or came after him.

But, when “school was out,” James's spirits
foamed over as naturally as a tumbler of soda-water,
and he could jump over benches and burst out
of doors with as much rapture as the veriest little
elf in his company. Then you might have seen
him stepping homeward with a most felicitous expression
of countenance, occasionally reaching his
hand through the fence for a bunch of currants, or
over it after a flower, or bursting into some back
yard to help an old lady empty her wash-tub, or
stopping to pay his devoirs to Aunt This or Mistress
That—for James well knew the importance
of the “powers that be,” and always kept the sunny
side of the old ladies.

We shall not answer for James's general flirtations,
which were sundry and manifold; for he had
just the kindly heart that fell in love with everything
in feminine shape that came in his way, and
if he had not been blessed with an equal faculty for
falling out again, we do not know what ever would
have become of him. But at length he came into
an abiding captivity, and it is quite time that he
should; for, having devoted thus much space to the
illustration of our hero, it is fit we should do something
in behalf of our heroine; and, therefore, we
must beg the reader's attention while we draw a
diagram or two that will assist him in gaining a
right idea of her.

Do you see yonder brown house, with its broad
roof sloping almost to the ground on one side, and
a great, unsupported, sun-bonnet of a piazza shooting
out over the front door? You must often have
noticed it; you have seen its tall well-sweep, relieved
against the clear evening sky, or observed
the feather beds and bolsters lounging out of its
chamber-windows on a still summer morning; you
recollect its gate, that swung with a chain and a
great stone; its pantry-window, latticed with little
brown slabs, and looking out upon a forest of beanpoles.
You remember the zephyrs that used to
play among its pea-brush, and shake the long tassels
of its corn-patch, and how vainly any zephyr
might essay to perform similar flirtations with the
considerate cabbages that were solemnly vegetating
near by. Then there was the whole neighbourhood
of purple-leaved beets and feathery parsnips;
there were the billows of gooseberry bushes rolled
up by the fence, interspersed with rows of quincetress;
and far off in one corner was one little
patch penuriously devoted to ornament, which flamed
with marigolds, poppies, snappers, and four-o'clocks.
Then there was a little box by itself
with one rose geranium in it, which seemed to look
around the garden as much like a stranger as a
French dancing-master in a Yankee meeting-house.

That is the dwelling of Uncle Timothy Griswold
Uncle Tim, as he was commonly called, had a
character that a painter would sketch for its lights
and contrasts rather than its symmetry. He was
a chestnut burr, abounding with briers without and
with substantial goodness within. He had the
strong grained practical sense, the calculating
worldly wisdom of his class of people in New-England:
he had, too, a kindly heart, but the whole
strata of his character was crossed by a vein of
surly petulance, that, half way between joke and
earnest, coloured everything that he said and did.

If you asked a favour of Uncle Tim, he generally
kept you arguing half an hour, to prove that you
really needed it, and to tell you that he could not
all the while be troubled with helping one body or
another, all which time you might observe him
regularly making his preparations to grant your
request, and see, by an odd glimmer of his eye,
that he was preparing to let you hear the “conclusion
of the whole matter,” which was, “Well, well—
I guess—I'll go on the hull—I 'spose I must, at
least;” so off he would go and work while the day
lasted, and then wind up with a farewell exhortation
“not to be a callin' on your neighbours when
you could get along without.” If any of Uncle
Tim's neighbours were in any trouble, he was always
at hand to tell them “that they shouldn't a'

done so;” that “it was strange they couldn't had
more sense;” and then to close his exhortations by
labouring more diligently than any to bring them
out of their difficulties, groaning in spirit, meanwhile,
that folks would make people so much trouble.

“Uncle Tim, father wants to know if you will
lend him your hoe to-day?” says a little boy, making
his way across a cornfield.

“Why don't your father use his own hoe?”

“Ours is broke.”

“Broke! How came it broke?”

“I broke it yesterday, trying to hit a squirrel.”

“What business had you to be hittin' squirrels
with a hoe? say!”

“But father wants to borrow yours.”

“Why don't he have that mended? It's a great
pester to have everybody usin' a body's things.”

“Well, I can borrow one somewhere else, I suppose,”
says the suppliant. After the boy has stumbled
across the ploughed ground and is fairly over
the fence, Uncle Tim calls,

“Halloo, there, you little rascal! what are you
goin' off without the hoe for?”

“I didn't know as you meant to lend it.”

“I didn't say I wouldn't, did I? Here, come and
take it—stay, I'll bring it; and do tell your father
not to be a lettin' you hunt squirrels with his hoes
next time.”

Uncle Tim's household consisted of Aunt Sally
his wife, and an only son and daughter; the former,
at the time our story begins, was at a neighbouring
literary institution. Aunt Sally was precisely as
clever, as easy to be entreated, and kindly in externals,
as her helpmate was the reverse. She was
one of those respectable, pleasant old ladies whom
you might often have met on the way to church on
a Sunday, equipped with a great fan and a psalm-book,
and carrying some dried orange-peel or a
stalk of fennel, to give to the children if they were
sleepy in meeting. She was as cheerful and domestic
as the teakettle that sung by her kitchen
fire, and slipped along among Uncle Tim's angles
and peculiarities as if there never was anything the
matter in the world; and the same mantle of sunshine
seemed to have fallen on Miss Grace, her
only daughter.

Pretty in her person and pleasant in her ways,
endowed with native self-possession and address,
lively and chatty, having a mind and a will of her
own, yet good-humoured withal, Miss Grace was a
universal favourite. It would have puzzled a city
lady to understand how Grace, who never was out
of Newbury in her life, knew the way to speak, and
act, and behave, on all occasions, exactly as if she
had been taught how. She was just one of those
wild flowers which you may sometimes see waving

its little head in the woods, and looking so civilized
and garden-like, that you wonder if it really did
come up and grow there by nature. She was an
adept in all household concerns, and there was
something amazingly pretty in her energetic way
of bustling about, and “putting things to rights.”
Like most Yankee damsels, she had a longing after
the tree of knowledge, and, having exhausted
the literary fountains of a district school, she fell
to reading whatsoever came in her way. True,
she had but little to read; but what she perused
she had her own thoughts upon, so that a person
of information, in talking with her, would feel a
constant wondering pleasure to find that she had
so much more to say of this, that, and the other
thing than he expected.

Uncle Tim, like every one else, felt the magical
brightness of his daughter, and was delighted with
her praises, as might be discerned by his often
finding occasion to remark that “he didn't see
why the boys need to be all the time a' comin' to
see Grace, for she was nothing so extror'nary,
after all.” About all matters and things at home
she generally had her own way, while Uncle Tim
would scold and give up with a regular good
grace that was quite creditable.

“Father,” says Grace, “I want to have a party
next week.”

“You sha'n't go to havin' your parties, Grace.
I always have to eat bits and ends a fortnight after
you have one, and I won't have it so.” And so
Uncle Tim walked out, and Aunt Sally and Miss
Grace proceeded to make the cake and pies for
the party.

When Uncle Tim came home, he saw a long
array of pies and rows of cakes on the kitchen
table.

“Grace—Grace—Grace, I say! What is all
this here flummery for?”

“Why, it is to eat, father,” said Grace, with a
good-natured look of consciousness.

Uncle Tim tried his best to look sour; but his
visage began to wax comical as he looked at his
merry daughter, so he said nothing, but quietly sat
down to his dinner.

“Father,” said Grace, after dinner, “we shall
want two more candlesticks next week.”

“Why! can't you have your party with what
you've got?”

“No, father, we want two more.”

“I can't afford it, Grace—there's no sort of use
on't—and you sha'n't have any.”

“Oh, father, now do,” said Grace.

“I won't, neither,” said Uncle Tim, as he sallied
out of the house, and took the road to Comfort
Scran's store.

In half an hour he returned again, and fumbling
in his pocket, and drawing forth a candlestick, levelled
it at Grace.

“There's your candlestick.”

“But, father, I said I wanted two.”

“Why! can't you make one do?”

“No, I can't; I must have two.”

“Well, then, there's t'other; and here's a fol-de-rol
for you to tie round your neck.” So saying,
he bolted for the door, and took himself off with all
speed. It was much after this fashion that matters
commonly went on in the brown house.

But, having tarried long on the way, we must
proceed with the main story.

James thought Miss Grace was a glorious girl,
and as to what Miss Grace thought of Master
James, perhaps it would not have been developed,
had she not been called to stand on the defensive
for him with Uncle Tim. For, from the time that
the whole village of Newbury began to be wholly
given unto the praise of Master James, Uncle Tim
set his face as a flint against him, from the laudable
fear of following the multitude. He therefore
made conscience of stoutly gainsaying everything
that was said in his favour, which, as James was
in high favour with Aunt Sally, he had frequent
opportunities to do.

So, when Miss Grace perceived that Uncle Tim

did not like our hero as much as he ought to do,
she, of course, was bound to like him well enough
to make up for it. Certain it is that they were
remarkably happy in finding opportunities of being
acquainted; that James waited on her, as a matter
of course, from singing-school; that he volunteered
making a new box for her geranium on an improved
plan; and, above all, that he was remarkably particular
in his attentions to Aunt Sally, a stroke of
policy which showed that James had a natural
genius for this sort of matters. Even when emerging
from the meeting-house in full glory, with
flute and psalm-book under his arm, he would stop
to ask her how she did; and if it was cold weather,
he would carry her foot-stove all the way home
from meeting, discoursing upon the sermon and
other serious matters, as Aunt Sally observed, “in
the pleasantest, prettiest way that ever ye see.”
This flute was one of the crying sins of James in
the eyes of Uncle Tim. James was particularly
fond of it, because he had learned to play on it by
intuition; and on the decease of the old pitchpipe,
which was slain by a fall from the gallery, he took
the liberty to introduce the flute in its place. For
this and other sins, and for the good reasons above
named, Uncle Tim's countenance was not towards
James, neither could he be moved to him ward by
any manner of means.

To all Aunt Sally's good words and kind speeches,
he had only to say that “he didn't like him;
that he hated to see him a' manifesting and glorifying
there in the front gallery Sundays, and a' acting
everywhere as if he was master of all; he
didn't like it, and he wouldn't.” But our hero was
no whit cast down or discomfited by the malcontent
aspect of Uncle Tim. On the contrary, when
report was made to him of divers of his hard
speeches, he only shrugged his shoulders with a
very satisfied air, and remarked that “he knew a
thing or two, for all that.”

“Why, James,” said his companion and chief
counsellor, “do you think Grace likes you?”

“I don't know,” said our hero, with a comfortable
appearance of certainty.

“But you can't get her, James, if Uncle Tim is
cross about it.”

“Fudge! I can make Uncle Tim like me, if I
have a mind to try.”

“Well, then, Jim, you'll have to give up that
flute of yours, I tell you, now.”

“Faw, sol, law—I can make him like me, and
my flute too.”

“Why, how will you do it?”

“Oh, I'll work it,” said our hero.

“Well, Jim, I tell you, now, you don't know Uncle

Tim if you say so; for he's just the settest crittur
in his way that ever you saw.”

`I do know Uncle Tim, though, better than most
folks; he is no more cross than I am; and as to
his being set, you have nothing to do but make him
think he is in his own way when he is in yours—
that is all.”

`Well,” said the other, “but, you see, I don't believe
it.”

“And I'll bet you a gray squirrel that I'll go
there this very evening, and get him to like me
and my flute both,” said James.

Accordingly, the late sunshine of that afternoon
shone full on the yellow buttons of James as he
proceeded to the place of conflict. It was a bright,
beautiful evening. A thunder-storm had just cleared
away, and the silver clouds lay rolled up in masses
around the setting sun; the rain-drops were sparkling
and winking to each other over the ends of
the leaves, and all the bluebirds and robins, breaking
forth into song, made the little green valley as
merry as a musical box.

James's soul was always overflowing with that
kind of poetry which consists in feeling unspeakably
happy; and it is not to be wondered, at, considering
where he was going, that he should feel
in a double ecstasy on the present occasion. He
stepped gayly along, occasionally springing over a

fence to the right, to see whether the rain had swollen
the trout-brook, or to the left, to notice the
ripening of Mr. Somebody's watermelons—for
James always had an eye on all his neighbours'
matters as well as his own.

In this way he proceeded till he arrived at the
picket-fence that marked the commencement of
Uncle Tim's ground. Here he stopped to consider.
Just then, four or five sheep walked up,
and began also to consider a loose picket, which
was hanging just ready to drop off; and James
began to look at the sheep. “Well, mister,” said
he, as he observed the leader judiciously drawing
himself through the gap, “in with you—just what
I wanted;” and, having waited a moment, to ascertain
that all the company were likely to follow, he
ran with all haste towards the house, and swinging
open the gate, pressed all breathless to the door.

“Uncle Tim, there are four or five sheep in
your garden.” Uncle Tim dropped his whetstone
and scythe.

“I'll drive them out,” said our hero; and with
that, he ran down the garden alley, and made a
furious descent on the enemy; bestirring himself,
as Bunyan says, “lustily and with good courage,”
till every sheep had skipped out much quicker than
it skipped in; and then, springing over the fence,
he seized a great stone, and nailed on the picket so

effectually that no sheep could possibly encourage
the hope of getting in again. This was all the
work of a minute; and he was back again, but so
exceedingly out of breath that it was necessary for
him to stop a moment and rest himself. Uncle
Tim looked ungraciously satisfied.

“What under the canopy set you to scampering
so?” said he; “I could a' driv' out them critturs
myself!”

“If you are at all particular about driving them
out yourself, I can let them in again,” said James.

Uncle Tim looked at him with an odd sort of
twinkle in the corner of his eye.

“'Spose I must ask you to walk in,” said he.

“Much obliged,” said James, “but I am in a
great hurry.” So saying, he started in very business-like
fashion towards the gate.

“You'd better jest stop a minute.”

“Can't stay a minute.”

“I don't see what possesses you to be all the
while in sich a hurry; a body would think you
had all creation on your shoulders!”

“Just my situation, Uncle Tim,” said James,
swinging open the gate.

“Well, at any rate, have a drink of cider, can't
ye?” said Uncle Tim, who was now quite engaged
to have his own way in the case.

James found it convenient to accept this invitation,

and Uncle Tim was twice as good-natured as
if he had stayed in the first of the matter.

Once fairly forced into the premises, James
thought fit to forget his long walk and excess of
business, especially as about that moment Aunt
Sally and Miss Grace returned from an afternoon
call. You may be sure that the last thing these
respectable ladies looked for was to find Uncle Tim
and Master James tête-à-tête over a pitcher of cider;
and when, as they entered, our hero looked
up with something of a mischievous air, Miss
Grace, in particular, was so puzzled that it took
her at least a quarter of an hour to untie her bonnet
strings. But James stayed and acted the
agreeable to perfection. First he must needs go
down into the garden to look at Uncle Tim's wonderful
cabbages, and then he promenaded all around
the corn-patch, stopping every few moments and
looking up with an appearance of great gratification,
as if he had never seen such corn in his life;
and then he examined Uncle Tim's favourite apple-tree
with an expression of wonderful interest.

“I never!” he broke forth, having stationed himself
against the fence opposite to it; “what kind of
an apple-tree is that?”

“It's a bell-flower, or somethin' another,” said
Uncle Tim.

“Why, where did you get it? I never saw

such apples!” said our hero, with his eyes still fixed
on the tree.

Uncle Tim pulled up a stalk or two of weeds
and threw them over the fence, just to show that he
did not care anything about the matter, and then
he came up and stood by James.

“Nothin' so remarkable, as I know on,” said he.

Just then, Grace came to say that supper was
ready. Once seated at table, it was astonishing
to see the perfect and smiling assurance with which
our hero continued his addresses to Uncle Tim.
It sometimes goes a great way towards making
people like us, to take it for granted that they do
already, and upon this principle James proceeded.
He talked, laughed, told stories, and joked with
the most fearless assurance, occasionally seconding
his words by looking Uncle Tim in the face
with a countenance so full of good-will as would
have melted any snow-drift of prejudices in the
world.

James also had one natural accomplishment,
more courtier-like than all the diplomacy in Europe,
and that was, the gift of feeling a real interest
for anybody in five minutes; so that if he began
to please in jest, he generally ended in earnest.
With great simplicity of mind, he had a natural
tact for seeing into others, and watched their motions
with the same delight with which a child

gazes at the wheels and springs of a watch, to “see
what it will do.”

The rough exterior and latent kindness of Uncle
Tim were quite a spirit-stirring study; and when
tea was over, as he and Grace happened to be
standing together in the front door, he broke forth,

“I do really like your father, Grace!”

“Do you?” said Grace.

“Yes, I do. He has something in him, and I
like him all the better for having to fish it out.”

“Well, I hope you will make him like you,” said
Grace, unconsciously; and then she stopped, and
looked a little abashed.

James was too well bred to see this, or look as
if Grace meant any more than she said—a kind of
breeding not always attendant on more fashionable
polish—so he only answered,

“I think I shall, Grace! though I doubt whether I
can get him to own it.”

“He is the kindest man that ever was,” said
Grace; “and he always acts as if he was ashamed
of it.”

James turned a little away, and looked at the
bright evening sky, which was glowing like a calm
golden sea; and over it was the silver new moon,
with one little star to hold the candle for her. He
shook some bright drops off from a rosebush near
by, and watched to see them shine as they fell,

while Grace stood very quietly waiting for him to
speak again.

“Grace,” said he, at last, “I am going to college
this fall.”

“So you told me yesterday,” said Grace

James stooped down over Grace's geranium,
and began to busy himself with pulling off all the
dead leaves, remarking in the mean while,

“And if I do get him to like me, Grace, will you
like me too?”

“I like you now very well,” said Grace.

“Come, Grace, you know what I mean,” said
James, looking steadfastly at the top of the apple-tree.

“Well, I wish, then, you would understand what
I mean, without my saying any more about it,” said
Grace.

“Oh! to be sure I will,” said our hero, looking
up with a very intelligent air; and so, as Aunt
Sally would say, the matter was settled, with “no
words about it.”

Now shall we narrate how our hero, as he saw
Uncle Tim approaching the door, had the impudence
to take out his flute, and put the parts together,
screwing it round and fixing it with great
composure?

“Uncle Tim,” said he, looking up, “this is the
best flute that ever I saw.”

“I hate them tooting critturs,” said Uncle Tim,
snappishly.

“I declare! I wonder how you can!” said
James, “for I do think they exceed—”

So saying, he put the flute to his mouth, and ran
up and down a long flourish.

“There! what think you of that?” said he,
looking in Uncle Tim's face with much delight.

Uncle Tim turned and marched into the house,
but soon faced to the right-about and came out
again, for James was fingering “Yankee Doodle”—
that appropriate national air for the descendants
of the Puritans.

Uncle Tim's patriotism began to bestir itself;
and now, if it had been anything, as he said, but
“that 'ere flute”—as it was, he looked more than
once at James's fingers.

“How under the sun could you learn to do that?”
said he.

“Oh, it's easy enough,” said James, proceeding
with another tune; and, having played it through,
he stopped a moment to examine the joints of his
flute, and in the mean time addressed Uncle Tim:
“You can't think how grand this is for pitching
tunes—I always pitch the tunes Sunday with it.”

“Yes; but I don't think it's a right and fit instrument
for the Lord's house,” said Uncle Tim.

“Why not? It is only a kind of a long pitchpipe,

you see,” said James; “and, seeing the old
one is broken, and this will answer, I don't see why
it is not better than nothing.”

“Why, yes, it may be better than nothing,” said
Uncle Tim; “but, as I always tell Grace and my
wife, it 'aint the right kind of instrument, after all;
it 'aint solemn.”

“Solemn!” said James; “that is according as
you work it: see here, now.”

So saying, he struck up Old Hundred, and proceeded
through it with great perseverance.

“There, now!” said he.

“Well, well, I don't know but it is,” said Uncle
Tim; “but, as I said at first, I don't like the look
of it in meetin'.”

“But yet you really think it is better than nothing,”
said James, “for you see I couldn't pitch
my tunes without it.”

“Maybe 'tis,” said Uncle Tim; “but that isn't
sayin' much.”

This, however, was enough for Master James
who soon after departed, with his flute in his pock
et, and Grace's last words in his heart; soliloquizing
as he shut the gate. “There, now, I hope Aunt
Sally won't go to praising me; for, just so sure as
she does, I shall have it all to do over again.”

James was right in his apprehension. Uncle
Tim could be privately converted, but not brought

to open confession; and when, the next morning,
Aunt Sally remarked, in the kindness of her heart,

“Well, I always knew you would come to like
James,” Uncle Tim only responded, “Who said I
did like him?”

“But I'm sure you seemed to like him last night.”

“Why, I couldn't turn him out o' doors, could
I? I don't think nothin' of him but what I always
did.”

But it was to be remarked that Uncle Tim contented
himself at this time with the mere general
avowal, without running it into particulars, as was
formerly his wont. It was evident that the ice
had begun to melt, but it might have been a long
time in dissolving, had not collateral incidents assisted.

It so happened that, about this time, George
Griswold, the only son before referred to, returned
to his native village, after having completed his
theological studies at a neighbouring institution.
It is interesting to mark the gradual development
of mind and heart, from the time that the white-headed,
bashful boy quits the country village for
college, to the period when he returns, a formed
and matured man, to notice how gradually the rust
of early prejudices begins to cleave from him—how
his opinions, like his handwriting, pass from the
cramped and limited forms of a country school into

that confirmed and characteristic style which is to
mark the man for life. In George this change
was remarkably striking. He was endowed by
nature with uncommon acuteness of feeling and
fondness for reflection: qualities as likely as any
to render a child backward and uninteresting in
early life.

When he left Newbury for college, he was a
taciturn and apparently phlegmatic boy, only evincing
sensibility by blushing, and looking particularly
stupified whenever anybody spoke to him.
Vacation after vacation passed, and he returned
more and more an altered being; and he who once
shrunk from the eye of the deacon, and was ready
to sink if he met the minister, now moved about
among the dignitaries of the place with all the
composure of a superior being.

It was only to be regretted that, while the mind
improved, the physical energies declined, and that
every visit to his home found him paler, thinner,
and less prepared in body for the sacred profession
to which he had devoted himself. But now
he was returned, a minister—a real minister, with
a right to stand in the pulpit and preach; and
what a joy and glory to Aunt Sally—and to Uncle
Tim, if he were not ashamed to own it.

The first Sunday after he came, it was known
far and near that George Griswold was to preach;

and never was a more ready and expectant audience.

As the time for reading the first psalm approached,
you might see the white-headed men turning
their faces attentively towards the pulpit; the
anxious and expectant old women, with their little
black bonnets, bent forward to see him rise. There
were the children looking, because everybody else
looked; there was Uncle Tim in the front pew,
his face considerately adjusted; there was Aunt
Sally, seeming as pleased as a mother could seem;
and Miss Grace, lifting her sweet face to her brother,
like a flower to the sun; there was our friend
James in the front gallery, his joyous countenance
a little touched with sobriety and expectation; in
short, a more embarrassingly attentive audience
never greeted the first effort of a young minister.
Under these circumstances, there was something
touching in the fervent self-forgetfulness which
characterized the first exercises of this morning—
something which moved every one in the house.

The devout poetry of his prayer, rich with the
orientalism of Scripture, and eloquent with the expression
of strong yet chastened emotion, breathed
over his audience like music, hushing every one to
silence, and beguiling every one to feeling. In the
sermon there was the strong intellectual nerve, the
constant occurrence of argument and statement,

which distinguishes a New-England discourse; but
it was touched with life by the intense, yet half-subdued
feeling with which he seemed to utter it.
Like the rays of the sun, it enlightened and melted
at the same moment.

The strong peculiarities of New-England doctrine,
involving, as they do, all the hidden machinery
of mind, all the mystery of its divine relations and
future progression, and all the tremendous uncertainties
of its eternal good or ill, seemed to have
dwelt in his mind, to have burned in his thoughts,
to have wrestled with his powers, and they gave to
his manner the fervency almost of another world;
while the exceeding paleness of his countenance,
and a tremulousness of voice that seemed to spring
from bodily weakness, touched the strong workings
of his mind with a pathetic interest, as if the
being so early absorbed in another world could
not be long for this.

When the services were over, the congregation
dispersed with the air of people who had felt rather
than heard; and all the criticism that followed
was similar to that of old Deacon Hart—an upright,
shrewd man—who, as he lingered a moment
at the church door, turned and gazed with unwonted
feeling at the young preacher.

“He's a blessed cre'tur!” said he, the tears actually
making their way to his eyes; “I han't

been so near heaven this many a day. He's a
blessed cre'tur of the Lord—that's my mind about
him!”

As for our friend James, he was at first sobered,
then deeply moved, and at last wholly absorbed
by the discourse; and it was only when meeting
was over that he began to think where he really
was.

With all his versatile activity, James had a greater
depth of mental capacity than he was himself
aware of, and he began to feel a sort of electric
affinity for the mind that had touched him in a way
so new; and when he saw the mild minister standing
at the foot of the pulpit stairs, he made directly
towards him.

“I do want to hear more from you,” said he,
with a face full of earnestness; “may I walk home
with you?”

“It is a long and warm walk,” said the young
minister, smiling.

“Oh, I don't care for that, if it does not trouble
you,” said James; and leave being gained, you
might have seen them slowly passing along under
the trees, James pouring forth all the floods of inquiry
which the sudden impulse of his mind had
brought out, and supplying his guide with more
questions and problems for solution than he could
have gone through with in a month.

“I cannot answer all your questions now,” said
he, as they stopped at Uncle Tim's gate.

“Well, then, when will you?” said James, eagerly.
“Let me come home with you to-night?”

The minister smiled assent, and James departed
so full of new thoughts, that he passed Grace without
even seeing her. From that time a friendship
commenced between the two, which was a beautiful
illustration of the affinities of opposites. It was
like a friendship between morning and evening—all
freshness and sunshine on one side, and all gentleness
and peace on the other.

The young minister, worn by long-continued ill
health, by the fervency of his own feelings, and the
gravity of his own reasonings, found pleasure in the
healthful buoyancy of a youthful, unexhausted mind,
while James felt himself sobered and made better by
the moonlight tranquillity of his friend. It is one
mark of a superior mind to understand and be influenced
by the superiority of others, and this was
the case with James. The ascendency which his
new friend acquired over him was unlimited, and
did more in a month towards consolidating and
developing his character, than all the four years
course of a college. Our religious habits are likely
always to retain the impression of the first seal
which stamped them, and in this case it was a peculiarly
happy one. The calmness, the settled

purpose, the mild devotion of his friend, formed a
just alloy to the energetic and reckless buoyancy
of James's character, and awakened in him a set of
feelings without which the most vigorous mind
must be incomplete.

The effect of the ministrations of the young pastor,
in awaking attention to the subjects of his calling
in the village, was marked, and of a kind
which brought pleasure to his own heart. But, like
all other excitement, it tends to exhaustion, and it
was not long before he sensibly felt the decline of
the powers of life. To the best-regulated mind
there is something bitter in the relinquishment of
projects for which we have been long and laboriously
preparing, and there is something far more bitter
in crossing the long-cherished expectations of
friends. All this George felt. He could not bear
to look on his mother, hanging on his words and
following his steps with eyes of almost childish delight—on
his singular father, whose whole earthly
ambition was bound up in his success, and think
how soon the “candle of their old age” must be
put out. When he returned from a successful effort,
it was painful to see the old man, so evidently
delighted, and so anxious to conceal his triumph,
as he would seat himself in his chair, and begin
with,

“George, that 'ere doctrine is rather of a puzzler;

but you seem to think you've got the run on't.
I should re'ly like to know what business you have
to think you know better than other folks about
it;” and, though he would cavil most courageously
at all George's explanations, yet you might perceive,
through all, that he was inly uplifted to hear
how his boy could talk.

If George was engaged in argument with any
one else, he would sit by, with his head bowed
down, looking out from under his shaggy eyebrows
with a shamefaced satisfaction very unusual
with him. Expressions of affection from the naturally
gentle are not half so touching as those which
are forced out from the hard-favoured and severe;
and George was affected, even to pain, by the evident
pride and regard of his father.

“He never said so much to anybody before,”
thought he, “and what will he do if I die?”

In such thoughts as these Grace found her brother
engaged one still autumn morning, as he stood
leaning against the garden fence.

“What are you solemnizing here for, this bright
day, brother George?” said she, as she bounded
down the alley.

The young man turned and looked on her happy
face with a sort of twilight smile.

“How happy you are, Grace!” said he.

“To be sure I am! and you ought to be too,
because you are better.”

“I am happy, Grace—that is, I hope I shall be.”

“You are sick, I know you are,” said Grace;
“you look worn out! Oh, I wish your heart could
spring once, as mine does.”

“I am not well, dear Grace, and I fear I never
shall be,” said he, turning away, and fixing his eyes
on the fading trees opposite.

“Oh, George! dear George! don't, don't say
that; you'll break all our hearts,” said Grace,
with tears in her own eyes.

“Yes, but it is true, sister: I do not feel it on
my own account so much as—However,” he added,
“it will all be the same in heaven.”

It was but a week after this that a violent cold
hastened the progress of debility into a confirmed
malady. He sunk very fast. Aunt Sally, with
the self-deceit of a fond and cheerful heart, thought
every day that “he would be better,” and Uncle
Tim resisted conviction with all the obstinate pertinacity
of his character, while the sick man felt
that he had not the heart to undeceive them.

James was now at the house every day, exhausting
all his energy and invention in the case of his
friend; and any one who had seen him in his hours
of recklessness and glee, could scarcely recognise
him as the being whose step was so careful, whose
eye so watchful, whose voice and touch were so
gentle, as he moved around the sick-bed. But the

same quickness which makes a mind buoyant in
gladness, often makes it gentlest and most sympathetic
in sorrow.

It was now nearly morning in the sick-room.
George had been restless and feverish all night,
but towards day he fell into a light slumber, and
James sat by his side, almost holding his breath
lest he should waken him. It was yet dusk, but
the sky was brightening with a solemn glow, and
the stars were beginning to disappear; all, save
the bright and morning one, which, standing alone
in the east, looked tenderly through the casement,
like the eye of our heavenly Father, watching over
us when all earthly friendships are fading.

George awoke with a placid expression of countenance,
and fixing his eyes on the brightening sky,
murmured faintly,

A moment after, a shade passed over his face;
he pressed his fingers over his eyes, and the tears
dropped silently on his pillow.

“George! dear George!” said James, bending
over him.

“It's my friends—it's my father—my mother,”
said he, faintly.

“Jesus Christ will watch over them,” said James,
soothingly.

“Oh, yes, I know he will; for He loved his own
which were in the world; he loved them unto the
end. But I am dying—and before I have done any
good.”

“Oh, do not say so,” said James; “think, think
what you have done, if only for me! God bless
you for it! God will bless you for it; it will follow
you to heaven; it will bring me there. Yes,
I will do as you have taught me! I will give my
life, my soul, my whole strength to it; and then
you will not have lived in vain.”

George smiled and looked upward; “his face
was as that of an angel;” and James, in his warmth,
continued:

“It is not I alone who can say this: we all
bless you; every one in this place blesses you;
you will be had in everlasting remembrance by
some hearts here, I know.”

“Bless God!” said George.

“We do,” said James. “I bless him that I ever
knew you; we all bless him, and we love you, and
shall forever.”

The glow that had kindled over the pale face of
the invalid again faded as he said,

“But, James, I must, I ought to tell my father
and mother; I ought to, and how can I?”

At that moment the door opened, and Uncle Tim
made his appearance. He seemed struck with the

paleness of George's face; and, coming to the side
of the bed, he felt his pulse, and laid his hand anxiously
on his forehead, and clearing his voice several
times, inquired “if he didn't feel a little better.”

“No, father,” said George; then taking his
hand, he looked anxiously in his face, and seemed
to hesitate a moment: “Father,” he began, “you
know that we ought to submit to God.”

There was something in his expression at this
moment which flashed the truth into the old man's
mind; he dropped his son's hand with an exclamation
of agony, and turning quickly, left the
room.

“Father! father!” said Grace, trying to rouse
him, as he stood with his arms folded by the kitchen
window.

“Get away, child!” said he, roughly.

“Father, mother says breakfast is ready.”

“I don't want any breakfast,” said he, turning
short about. “Sally, what are you fixing in that
'ere porringer?”

“Oh, it's only a little tea for George: 'twill
comfort him up, and make him feel better, poor
fellow.”

“You won't make him feel better—he's gone,”
said Uncle Tim, hoarsely.

“Oh, dear heart! no!” said Aunt Sally.

“Be still a contradicting me; I won't be contradicted

all the time by nobody! The short of
the case is, that George is goin' to die just as we've
got him ready to be a minister and all; and I wish
to pity I was in my grave myself, and so—” said
Uncle Tim, as he plunged out of the door and shut
it after him.

It is well for man that there is one Being who
sees the suffering heart as it is, and not as it manifests
itself through the repellancies of outward infirmity,
and who, perhaps, feels more for the stern
and wayward, than for those whose gentler feelings
win for them human sympathy. With all his
singularities, there was in the heart of Uncle Tim
a depth of religious sincerity; but there are few
characters where religion does anything more than
struggle with natural defect, and modify what would
else be far worse.

In this hour of trial, all the native obstinacy and
pertinacity of the old man's character rose, and
while he felt the necessity of submission, it seemed
impossible to submit; and thus, reproaching himself,
struggling in vain to repress the murmurs of
nature, repulsing from him all external sympathy,
his mind was “tempest-toss'd and not comforted.”

It was on the still afternoon of the following Sabbath
that he was sent for, in haste, to the chamber
of his son. He entered, and saw that the hour
was come. The family were all there; Grace

and James, side by side, bent over the dying one,
and his mother sat afar off, with her face hid in
her apron, “that she might not see the death of the
child.” The aged minister was there, and the
Bible lay open before him. The father walked to
the side of the bed. He stood still, and gazed on
the face now brightening with “life and immortality.”
The son lifted up his eyes: he saw his father,
smiled, and put out his hand. “I am glad
you are come,” said he. “Oh, George, to the pity,
don't! don't smile on me so! I know what is
coming; I have tried and tried, and I can't, I can't
have it so;” and his frame shook, and he sobbed
audibly. The room was still as death; there was
none that seemed able to comfort him. At last
the son repeated, in a sweet but interrupted voice,
those words of man's best Friend: “Let not your
heart be troubled; in my Father's house are many
mansions.”

“Yes, but I can't help being troubled; I suppose
the Lord's will must be done, but it'll kill me.”

“Oh, father, don't, don't break my heart,” said
the son, much agitated. “I shall see you again in
heaven, and you shall see me again; and then
`your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man
taketh from you.”'

“I never shall get to heaven, if I feel as I do
now,” said the old man. “I cannot have it so.”

The mild face of the sufferer was overcast. “I
wish he saw all that I do,” said he, in a low voice;
then looking towards the minister, he articulated,
“Pray for us.”

They knelt in prayer. It was soothing, as real
prayer always must be; and when they rose, every
one seemed more calm. But the sufferer was exhausted;
his countenance changed; he looked on
his friends; there was a faint whisper, “Peace I
leave with you,” and he was in heaven.

We need not dwell on what followed. The seed
sown by the righteous often blossoms over their
grave; and so was it with this good man: the
words of peace which he spake unto his friends
while he was yet with them, came into remembrance
after he was gone; and though he was laid
in the grave with many tears, yet it was with softened
and submissive hearts.

“The Lord bless him!” said Uncle Tim, as he
and James were standing, last of all, over the grave.
“I believe my heart is gone to heaven with him;
and I think the Lord really did know what was
best, after all.”

Our friend James seemed now to become the
support of the family, and the bereaved old man
unconsciously began to transfer to him the affections
that had been left vacant.

“James,” said he to him one day, “I suppose

you know that you are about the same to me as a
son.”

“I hope so,” said James, kindly.

“Well, well, you'll go to college next week, and
none o' y'r keepin' school to get along. I've got
enough to bring you safe out—that is, if you'll be
car'ful and stiddy.”

James knew the heart too well to refuse a favour
in which the poor old man's mind was comforting
itself; he had the self-command to abstain
from any extraordinary expressions of gratitude,
but took it kindly, as a matter of course.

“Dear Grace,” said he to her, the last evening
before he left home, “I am changed; we both are
altered since we first knew each other; and now
I am going to be gone a long time, but I am
sure—”

He stopped to arrange his thoughts.

“Yes, you may be sure of all those things that
you wish to say, and cannot,” said Grace.

“Thank you,” said James; then, looking
thoughtfully, he added,

“God help me. I believe I have mind enough
to be what I mean to; but whatever I am or have
shall be given to God and my fellow-men; and
then, Grace, your brother in heaven will rejoice
over me.”

“I believe he does now,” said Grace. “God

bless you, James; I don't know what would have
become of us if you had not been here.”

“Yes, you will live to be like him, and to do
even more good,” she added, her face brightening
as she spoke, till James thought she really must be
right.

It was five years after this that James was spoken
of as an eloquent and successful minister in
the State of C—, and was settled in one of its
most influential villages. Late one autumn evening,
a tall, bony, hard-favoured man was observed
making his way into the outskirts of the place.

“Halloa, there!” he called to a man over the
other side of a fence; “what town is this 'ere?”

“It's Farmington, sir.”

“Well, I want to know if you know anything of
a boy of mine that lives here?”

“A boy of yours—who?”

“Why, I've got a boy here, that's livin' on the
town, and I thought I'd jest look him up.”

“I don't know any boy that is living on the
town; what's his name?”

“Why,” said the old man, pushing his hat off
from his forehead, “I believe they call him James
Benton.”

“James Benton! why, that is our minister's
name.”

“Oh, wal, I believe he is the minister, come to
think on't. He's a boy o' mine, though. Where
does he live?”

“In that white house that you see set back
from the road there, with all those trees round it.”

At this instant a tall, manly-looking person approached
from behind. Have we not seen that
face before? It is a touch graver than of old, and
its lines have a more thoughtful significance; but
all the vivacity of James Benton sparkles in that
quick smile as his eye falls on the old man.

“I thought you could not keep away from us
long,” said he, with the prompt cheerfulness of his
boyhood, and laying hold of both of Uncle Tim's
hard hands.

They approached the gate; a bright face glances
past the window, and in a moment Grace is at
the door.

“Father! dear father!”

“You'd better make believe be so glad,” said
Uncle Tim, his eyes glistening as he spoke.

“Come, come, father, I have authority in these
days,” said Grace, drawing him towards the house,
“so no disrespectful speeches; away with your hat
and coat, and sit down in this great chair.”

“So, ho! Miss Grace,” said Uncle Tim, “you
are at your old tricks, ordering round as usual.
Well, if I must, I must;” so down he sat.

“Father,” said Grace, as he was leaving them,
after a few days' stay, “it is Thanksgiving-day next
month, and you and mother must come and stay
with us.”

Accordingly, the following month found Aunt
Sally and Uncle Tim by the minister's fireside,
delighted witnesses of the Thanksgiving presents
which a willing people were pouring in, and the
next day they had once more the pleasure of seeing
a son of theirs in the sacred desk, and hearing
a sermon that everybody said was the “best he
ever preached;” and it is to be remarked, by-the-by,
that this was the standing commentary on all
James's discourses, so that it was evident that he
was “going on unto perfection.”

“There's a great deal that's worth havin' in
this 'ere life, after all,” said Uncle Tim, as he sat
musing over the coals of the bright evening fire
of that day; “that is, if we'd only take it when the
Lord lays it in our way.”

“Yes,” said James; “and let us only take it as
we should, and this life will be cheerfulness, and
the next fulness of joy.”