University of Virginia Library

THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER.

BY ALICE CAREY,
AUTHOR OF “CLOVERNOOK,” “LYRA,” ETC.

1. CHAPTER I.

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

I cannot choose but pause and survey the picture. The
Kentucky shore is all hidden with mist: I cannot see the
young cities whose sloping suburbs are washed by the Ohio
(river of beauty), save here and there the gleam of a white
wall, or the dense column of smoke that rises through the
silver mist from the hot furnaces where swart labor drives the
thrifty trades that speeds the march to refined elegance. I
cannot see the blue green nor the golden green of the oat and
wheat fields that lie beyond these infant cities, nor the dark
ridge of woods that folds its hem of shadows along their borders,
for all day yesterday fell one of those rains that would
seem to exhaust the cloudy cisterns of heaven, and the soaked

earth this morning sends up its coal-smelling and unwholesome
fogs, obscuring the picture that would else present itself.

I can only guess where the garrison is, but could not even

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

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

Growing on the view into familiar shapes, comes out point
after point of the landscape—towers and temples, and trees of
forests and orchards, and meadow-land—the marts of traffic
and the homes of men; and amongst these last there is one to
which I would particularly call the reader's attention. It is
very humble, to be sure, but its inmates, as you guess from the
cream-white walls, overrun with clematis and jasmine, and
the clambering stalks of roses, are not devoid of some simple
elegance of taste from which some inference of their characters
may be drawn, for the things we feel are exhibited in the
things which we do.

The white-pebbled walk leading from gate to doorway, is
edged with close miniature pyramids of box, and the smoothly-shaven

sward is shadowed by various shrubs and flowers, and
the gold velvet of the dandelion shines wherever it will, from
she fence up close beneath the windows, sending up its bitter
fragrance out of dew, while sheaves of green phlox stand here
and there, that in their time July will top with crimson
flowers.

The windows are hung with snowy curtains, and in one
that fronts the sun, a bird-cage is hung, with an inmate as
wildly chattering as though its wings were free. A sky-blue
wreath of smoke is curling upward just now, pleasantly suggestive,
and drifting southward from the tall kitchen chimney,
and Jenny Mitchel, the young housewife, as I guess, is baking
pies. Nothing becomes her chubby hands so well as the
moulding of pastry, and her cheerful singing, if we were near
enough to hear it, would attest that nothing makes her more
happy. And well may she sing and be happy, for the rosy-faced
baby sits up in its white willow cradle, and crows back
to her lullaby; and by and by the onest husband will come
from healthful labor, and her handiwork in flour, and fruit,
and sugar, and spice, will be sure of due appreciation and
praise.

Nowhere from among the suburban gardens of this basin
rimmed with hills, peeps from beneath its sheltering trees a
cozier home. They are plain common-sense people who dwell
there, vexed with no vague yearnings for the far off and the
unattained—weighed down with no preponderance of sentiment
that is blind to all good that is not best, oppressed with
no misanthropic fancies about the hatred of the world which
they have never injured—nor yet affected with spasmodic
struggles as though their great enemy should not wholly baffle
them—No, no! dear reader, the great world cares nothing
about them—and what of it!

Its indifference is not a stab in their bosom, the slow bleeding
of which can only be stifled in the grave!

Helph Randall, the sturdy blacksmith, whose forge is aglow
before the sunrise, and rosy-cheeked Jenny, his blue-eyed wife,
though she sometimes remembers the shamrock, and sighs,
have no such aching wounds concealed—on that I will stake
my gold pen, the only valuable I possess.

But were they always thus contented and happy?—aye, that's
the question. Did they cross that mysterious river whose
course never did run smooth, without trial and tribulation such
as most voyagers upon its bosom have met since the world
began; certainly since Jacob served seven years for Rachel
and was then put off with Leah, and obliged to serve other
seven for his first love? We shall see; and this brings me
back to the opening of my story, and to one of the many Fridays
on which my father comes to town. I am not sure but
that I msut turn another leaf and begin with Thursday—yes,
I have the time now. As bright an afternoon it was as ever
turned the green swaths into gray, or twinkled against the
shadows stretching eastward from the thick-rising haycocks.

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

Such was the season, and the time just after dinner, that
Mrs. Wetherbe came to pass the afternoon, and, as she said,

“kill two birds with one stone,” by securing a passage to the
city on the morrow in my father's carriage. For many are
the old ladies, and young ones too, who avail themselves of a
like privilege.

Of course it was a pleasure to us to accommodate her, and
not the less, perhaps, that it was a favor she had never asked,
and was never likely to ask again.

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

In the first place, she had not for six years been to visit her
niece, Mrs. Emeline Randall, who came to her house more or
less every summer, and really felt slighted and grieved that
her visits were never returned. So Mrs. Randall expressed
herself, and so Mrs. Wetherbe thought, honest old lady as she
was, and therefore she felt as though she must go and see
Emeline, notwithstanding she would just as soon, she said, put
her head in a hornet's nest any time as go to town, for she
regarded its gayeties and fashion (and all city people, in her
opinion, were gay and fashionable), as avenues leading direct
to the kingdom of Satan. Therefore it would have been, as I
conceive, quite doubtful whether for the mere pleasure of
visiting Emeline, Mrs. Wetherbe would have entered city
limits.

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

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

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

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

This was years ago, my reader, and the fashion of such
parties has long since passed away, but in due time I will tell
you about this, as you may never have an opportunity of personal
observation and participation.

Perhaps you may have seen persons, if not, I have, who
seem to feel called on from some obligatory feeling I do not

understand, to offer continual apologies for whatever they do
or propose to do. And after the announcement of the proposed
frolic, she talked a long chapter of whys and wherefores
after this wise.

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

I remarked that I was under the impression that Mr. Randall
was a man of fortune, and asked if Helph was out of college
so early: “Bless your heart, no,” said Mrs. Wetherbe, “he
was never in a university more'n I be this minute; his father
is as rich as Creseus, but his children got all their larnin' in
free schools, pretty much; Helph hasn't been to school this
ten years a'most, I guess—let me see, he was in a blacksmith's
shop sartainly two or three years before he cum to my house,
and he isn't but nineteen now, so he must have been tuck from
school airly—the long and short on't is,” said the old lady,
making her knitting-needles fly again, “Emeline, poor gal, has
got a man that is reel clost, and the last time I was there I
a'most thought he begrutched me my vittals, and I was keerful
to take butter and garden-sass and so on, enough to airn all
I got.” And the good lady really dropped her work, so exasperated
was she, for though economical and saving in all ways, she
was not meanly stingy. She had chanced to glide into a

communicative mood by no means habitual to her; and the
perspiration stood in drops on her forehead, and her little black
eyes winked with great rapidity for a minute ere she added,
“and that ain't the worst on't neither, he is often in drink, and
sich times he gits the Old Clooty in him as big as a yearlin'
heifer!”

2. CHAPTER II.

When first morning began to redden over the eastern stars,
our household was astir; and, while we partook of an early
breakfast, the light wagon, which was drawn by two smart
young bays, was brought to the door. Baskets, jugs, &c., were
imbedded among the straw—with which our carriage was
plentifully supplied—and a chair was placed behind the one
seat for my accommodation, as Mrs. Wetherbe was to be a
passenger. I have always regarded the occupancy of that
chair upon that occasion, as a virtue of self-sacrifice, which I
should not like to repeat, however beautiful in theory be the
doctrines of self-abnegation. But, dear reader, I cannot hope
that you will appreciate that little benevolence of mine, from
the probable fact that you have never ridden eight or less
miles in an open wagon, and on a chair slipping from side to
side, and jolting up and down behind two coltish trotters; and
over roads that, for a part of the time, kept “one wheel in the
gutter and one in the air.”

But it was not my intention to make myself a very prominent
character in this story, and therefore I must leave to be
imagined the ups and downs of this particular epoch of my
lite. Still one star stood large and white above the eastern
hills, but the ground of crimson began to be dashed with gold
when we set forward for the city.

Notwithstanding the “rough, uneven ways which drew out
the miles and made them wearisome,” these goings to the city
are among the most delightful recollections of my life. They
were to my young vision “fresh fields and pastures new;” and
after a passage of a few years with their experiences, the new
sensations, that freshen and widen the atmosphere of thought,
are very few, and precious exceedingly.

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

Early as we were, we found Mrs. Wetherbe in waiting at
the gate; and long before reaching the place of her residence,
the fluttering of her scarlet merino shawl, which looked like
the rising of another morning, apprised us of the fact.

She had been nigh about an hour watching for us, she said,
and was just about going into the house to “take off her
things” when she saw the heads of the horses before a great
cloud of dust; and though she couldn't see the color of the wagon,
nor a sign of the critters, to tell whether they were black or
white, she knew right-a-way that it was our team, she said, for
no body druv such fine horses as Mr. —. “Here, Mrs.
Witherbe, get right in,” said my father: who was fond of
horses, and felt the compliment as much as though it had been
to himself; and it was entirely owing to it that he said Mrs.
Witherbe instead of Mrs. Wetherbe, though I am not sufficiently
a metaphysician to explain why such cause should
have produced such an effect.

Helphenstein, who was chopping wood at the door, called out,

as we were leaving, “Don't forget to ask Jenny to come to the
quilting:” and Mr. Wetherbe paused from his churning, beneath
a cherry-tree, to say, “Good-by, mother: be careful, and
not lose any money, for its a divelish hard thing to slip into a
puss, and its a divelish easy thing to slip out.”

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

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

“It was the strangest thing that ever could have happened,”
said Mrs. Wetherbe. “He was coming home from town—
Helph was—and he said when he paid toll, he said he just had
two shillings left, he said; and he put it in the left pocket of
his trowsers, he said: he said he knew he had it then, for just
as he rode up the bank of the creek, his horse stumbled, and he
heard the money jingle, he said, just as plain as could be, he
said; and when he got home, and went up stairs, and went to

hang up his trowsers before he went to go to bed, he just
thought he would feel in his pocket, he said, and behold, the
money was not there! He said then, he said, he said he
thought he might have been mistaken, he said; and so he felt
in the other pocket, he said, and lo, and behold, it was clean
gone! And such things make a body feel as if they could not
be too keerful,” concluded Mrs. Wetherbe; “for that you
might as well look for a needle in a haystack, as for a dollar
once lost. Helph,” she added, “rode back the next morning
as far as the toll-house, and though he kept his eyes bent on
the ground, the search was useless.” And the good lady suddenly
started, and clapped her hand, not in her pocket, but
where she had deposited her own purse, exclaiming, as she did
so, “Mercy on us! I thought at first it was gone; and I
declare for it, I am just as weak as a cat now, and I shall not
get over my fright this whole and blessed day.”

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

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

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

to which we were attaining, as well as serious impediments
to the colloquial enjoyment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The old lady looked puzzled, and said she didn't say any
thing; and after a moment my father resumed: “Well, do you
know where the old man died?” and in a tone that seemed to
indicate that she didn't know much of any thing.

“What?” asked the lady; and she continued in a tone of
irritation: “I never saw a wagon make such a terrible rattletebang
in my born days.”

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

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

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

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

“The devil!” said my father, losing not only all gallantry,
but all patience too; “I never told you no such thing, Mrs.
Wetherbe. I have not seen you to talk with you any for a
number of years till this morning, when you told me yourself
that the old man was dead; and if I had ever told such a story
I should remember it.”

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

“Good heavens!” said my father, “it was just there you
told me; and I had not heard till that minute of his death. I
will leave it to my daughter here,” he continued, turning to
me, who, convulsed with laughter, was shaking and jolting
from side to side, and backward and forward, and up and
down, all at the same time.

Just at this juncture, a smart little chaise, drawn by a high

headed black horse, with a short tail, approached from the
opposite direction. Within sat a white-haired old gentleman,
wearing gloves and ruffles; and beside him, a youngish and
rather gayly-dressed lady.

Both looked smiling and happy; and as they passed, the gentleman
bowed low to Mrs. Wetherbe and my father.

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

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

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

Fat, red-faced butchers, carrying long whips, and reining in
the gay horses they bestrode, met us, one after another, driving
back from the market great droves of cattle, that, tired and
half maddened, galloped hither and thither, slashing their tails
furiously, and now and then sharply striking their horns against
each other, till they were forced through narrow passages into
the hot, close pens. No sniff of fresh air, no cool draught of
water between them and their doom!

Now and then a little market-cart, filled with the empty
boxes and barrels that had lately been overflowing with onions,
turnips, and radishes, went briskly by us: the two occupants,
who sat on a board across the front of the wagon, having thus
early disposed of their cargo, and being now returning home

to their gardens. Very happy they looked, with the market
money in the pockets of their white aprons, which not unfrequently
held also a calf's head or beef's liver, a half-dozen pig's
feet, or some other like delicacy, to be served up with garlics
for dinner.

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

After all, the independent yeoman, with his simple rusticity
and healthful habits, is the happiest man in the world. And as
I saw them then returning home, with happy faces and full
baskets, I could not help saying:

“What is it, darter?” said Mrs. Wetherbe, bending towards
me; for her poetical apprehensions were not very quick. “I
was saying,” I replied, “that the farmers are the happiest
people in the world.”

“Yes, yes, they are the happiest,” she replied, her predilections,
of course, in favor of her own way of living. “It
stands to reason,” she continued, “that it hardens the heart
to live in cities, and makes folks selfish too. Look there,”
she continued, “what a dreadful sight!” and she pointed
to a cart filled with sheep and lambs, on top of which two
or three calves were thrown, with their feet tied together,
and thrown upwards, their heads stretched back, and their
tongues lolling out. “Really the law should punish such useless

cruelty,” she said; and I thought then, and I still think,
that Mrs. Wetherbe was right.

Men and business began to thicken; blacksmiths were
beating the iron over their glowing forges; carpenters
shoving the plane; and the trowel of the mason ringing
against the bricks. Men, women, and children hurried to
and fro; all languages were heard, and all costumes presented
themselves.

“What a perfect bedlam!” said Mrs. Wetherbe; “I wish to
mercy I was ready to go home. Here, maybe, you had better
wait a little,” she added, seizing the rein, and pointing in the
direction of a grocery and variety store, where some crockery
appeared at the window, and a strip of red flannel at the door.
“Don't you want to go down town?” said my father, reining
up.

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

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

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

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

Thus relieved of her burdens, she went forward to the table
—for Mr. Randall did not rise—and offered her hand.

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

This salutation was not particularly well calculated to make
me feel happy, or at home, for I was young and timid; and
removing my position from the range of his glance, I deliberately
surveyed the group before me.

3. CHAPTER III.

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

His paternal feelings were soon quieted, and turning to his
wife, who had resumed her seat at the table, her hair in papers,

and dressed in a petticoat and short-gown, he said: “Emeline,
don't hurry up the cakes too fast; I don't want dinner a
minute before three o'clock,” and this time he really left the
house. Besides Mrs. Randall, there were at the table two little
boys of ten and eight, perhaps; two big boys of about fourteen
and sixteen, and a little girl of fourteen, or thereabouts. “Oh,”
said one of the larger boys, as if first aware of the presence of
his aunt, and speaking with his mouthful of beefsteak and
coffee, “Oh, Miss Malinda Hoe-the-corn, how do you do? I
didn't see you before.”

Of course the old lady was disconcerted, and blushed as she
had perhaps not done since her worthy husband asked her if
she had any liking for his name over and above her own.

Observing this, the young man continued, “Beg pardon for
my beefsteak, I thought it was Malinda Hoe-the-corn, but its
my sweetheart, Dolly Anne Matilda Steerhorn, and she's
blushing head and ears to see me.”

And approaching the astonished and bewildered woman, he
began to unpin her shawl, which was of an old fashion, saying,
as he attempted to pass his arm around her waste, “Get up, my
love, and let's have a waltz; come, take off your hoss-blanket.”

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

“That is right, Aunty Wetherbe,” said the mother, “he
is a great lubbersides, and that is just what he is;” but she
aughed heartily, and all the group, with the exception of the
little girl, seemed to think the young man was behaving very
funnily. And in his own estimation he was evidently making
himself brilliant, and had quite confounded, as he supposed, a
simple-minded old woman with his abundant humor and unembarrassed
manners. “Well,” he continued, no whit discomfited

by the evident displeasure of his aunt, “I am a business
man, and must leave you, my dear, but I'll bring my
wedding-coat and the parson to-night, and an orange-flower
for you.”

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

“Mercy sakes!” exclaimed the old lady, adjusting her spectacles
to survey the youth, “you can't be married!”

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

“Well, I'd never have thought it,” the aunt said; “but you
have grown all out of my knowledge, and I can hardly tell
which one you be; in fact, I would not have known you if I
had met you any place else,” she continued, “and yet I can
see Emeline's looks in you.”

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

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

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

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

“I'd like to get some white bantams for my wife and baby;”

and the facetious nephew closed one eye and fixed the other
upon me.

“What do you call the baby?” inquired the aunt.

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

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

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

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

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

“Come, come, you just tend to your own affairs, Miss Jenny,
and finish your breakfast some time before noon,” said Mrs.
Randall, putting on a severe look.

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

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

Not till the two little boys had demolished the last remnants
of what seemed to have been but a “spare feast” in the first

place, was the bell rung for “Aunt Kitty,” the colored woman
who presided over the kitchen. She was one of those dear
old creatures whom you feel like petting and calling “mammy”
at once. She was quiet, and goodness of heart shone out all
over her yellow face, and a cheerful piety pervaded her conversation.

She retained still the softness of manner and cordial warmth
of feeling peculiar to the South; and added to this was the
patient submission that never thought of opposition.

Nearly fifty years she had lived, and most of them had been
passed in hard labor; but notwithstanding incessant toil she
was still, to my thinking, pretty. Perhaps, reader, you are
smiling at what you consider a preposterous idea of beauty.
True, she possessed few of the concomitants which, in the
popular estimation, go to make up beauty; neither matchless
symmetry, fairness of complexion, nor that crowning beauty
of womanhood, long and silken tresses.

Ah no; her face was a bright olive, and her hair was concealed
by a gorgeous turban, and I suspect better so concealed,
but her teeth were sound, and of sparkling whiteness,
and her eyes black as night, and large, but instead of an arrowy,
of a kind of tearful and reproachful expression; indeed
in all her face there was that which would have seemed reproachful,
but for the sweetly-subduing smile that played over
all. Short and thick-set in person was Aunt Kitty, and as for
her dress, I can only say it was cleanly, for in other respects
it was like that of the celebrated priest who figures in the
nursery rhyme, “all tattered and torn.” And as for her slippers,
they had evidently never been made for her, and in all
probability were worn out before they came into her possession;
but her feet were mostly concealed by the long skirt of
ner dress, a morning wrapper of thin white muslin, past the

uses of her mistress, and she, be it known to you, gave nothing
away which, by any possibility, could serve herself.

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

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

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

Poor Aunt Kitty was sadly disappointed, but consoled herself
in the hope that we would return to dinner—but Mrs.
Randall said nothing about it. But before I proceed with
our shopping expedition, I have somewhat to say of Jenny,
a pretty rosy-faced Irish girl, whom Mrs. Randall told us was
her adopted daughter; and certainly we should never have
guessed it otherwise.

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

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

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

From my own observation for a single hour, I felt assured
that the girl's situation was any thing but desirable: called
on constantly by all members of the family to do this thing
and that,—for having no set tasks assigned, it was thought
she could do every thing, and furthermore be responsible for
all the accidents of all the departments. “Here, Jenny,”
called one of the little boys, and they were no less accomplished
in their way than the older brothers, “black my shoes,
and do it quick, too,”—at the same time throwing a pair of
coarse stogies roughly against her.

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

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

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

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

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

“It's pretty much so!” called out Mrs. Wetherbe, “it's
pretty much so, Emeline.” But as she descended, the boy
loosened his hold, and of course received no blame—and the

girl a slap on the ear, with the admonition to see now if she
could do her work.

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

And this is only a sample of the constant requirements at
her hands, and of the treatment she received.

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

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

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

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

But Mrs. Randall said she had been idling away too much
time to ask for more, and she enumerated a dozen things that
required to be done; however, Mrs. Wetherbe and I combated
the decision, and volunteered our assistance, so that reluctant
permission to go out with us was granted. Gratitude
opened the heart of the little maid, and as we hastened our
work, she confided to me many of her trials and sorrows, from
which it appeared that the three shillings per week made all
her compensation, with the exception of now and then an old
pair of gloves or a faded ribbon, cast off by her mistress.
True it was, her father was a drunkard, and her mother, a poor
weakly woman, had six children to provide for, and that she
gave her own earnings to their support, almost altogether.
“They have pretended to adopt me as a child,” she said, “that
they may appear liberal in the eyes of the world; but I am, as
you see, an underling and a drudge.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

If there be any class of people with whom I really dislike
to come in contact, it is the naturally mean and vulgar, and
accidentally rich. You need but a glimpse of such persons,
or of their homes, to know them. No expenditure in lace,
silks, gold chains, Brussels, and mahogany, can remove them
one hand's breadth from their proper position; and the proper
position of the Randalls was that of the menials over whom
their money only gave them supremacy.

A long time we were in getting through our many errands,
for Mrs. Wetherbe was detained not a little in wonderment

at this novelty and that. When a funeral passed, she could
not think who could be dead, and essayed all her powers to
get a glimpse of the coffin, that she might know whether it
were child or adult; and if a horseman cantered past, she
gazed after him, wondering if he was not going for the doctor,
and if he was, who in the world could be sick. Then, too,
she selected little samples of the goods she wished to purchase,
and carried them up to Emeline's, to determine whether they
would wash well; but notwithstanding her frugality and
cautiousness, she was not mean. And here let me record to
her honor, that she lightened her purse on Jenny's account to
the amount of a pretty new dress. But she could not be
spared for a week, and it was agreed that Helph should be
sent to bring her on the day of the quilting; and so, between
smiles and tears, we left her.

Alas for Aunt Kitty! nothing could alleviate her disappointment:
she had prepared dinner with special reference to
us, and we had not been there to partake of it, or to praise
her.

“Poor souls! de Lord help you,” she said; “you will be
starved a'most!”

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

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

4. CHAPTER IV

That going to town of Mrs. Wetherbe, about which I told
you in my last chapter, was chiefly with a view to purchases
in reference to the proposed quilting party and wood-chopping.
Not only did we select calico for the border of the quilt, together
with cotton batting and spool-thread, but we also procured
sundry niceties in the edible way, among which I remember
a jug of Orleans molasses, half a pound of ground
ginger, three mackerels, five pounds of cheese, and two pounds
of raisins.

Mrs. Wetherbe had never made a “frolic” before, she said,
and now she wouldn't have the name of being near about it,
let it cost what it would.

And great excitement and talk ran through all the neighborhood
so soon as it was known that Mrs. Wetherbe had been to
town; and rumor speedily exaggerated the gallon of molasses
into a dozen gallons, the three mackerels into a keg, and so on.

Many thought it was not very creditable in a “professor”
to make such a “spree;” some wondered where she would
find any body good enough to ask; others supposed she would
have all her company from town, and all agreed that if she
was going to have her “big-bug” relations, and do her “great
gaul,” she might for all of them. The wonder was that she

didn't make a party of “whole cloth,” and not stick her quilt
in at all.

There was a great deal of surmising and debating as to the
quilt itself; some hoped it was a little nicer than any patchwork
they had seen of Mrs. Wetherbe's making.

But this unamiable disposition gradually gave way when it
was known that the frolic would embrace a wood-chopping
as well as quilting; for surely, they said, she don't expect
chaps from town to cut wood!

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

From one or two families in which the greatest curiosity
reigned, spies were sent out in the shape of little girls and
boys, whose ostensible objects were the borrowing of a
darning-needle or a peck measure of the harmless family who
were become the centre of attraction, but whose real errands
were to see what they could see. So the feeling of asperity
was mollified, inasmuch as reports thus obtained circulation
favoring the neighborly and democratic disposition and character
hitherto borne by the Wetherbes.

At one time the good old lady was found with her sleeves
rolled back and mixing bread as she used to do; and invariably
she inquired of the little spies how affairs were going
forward at home. After all, the neighbors began to think the
quilting was not going to be any such great things more than
other quiltings. But I may as well report the rest from actual
observation.

One morning as I looked up from the window where I sat,

I saw Helphenstein Randall approaching, and at once divined
his errand, in which guess-work I was assisted by the method
of his coming, for he was mounted upon Mrs. Wetherbe's old
roan mare, and riding a side-saddle. The boy seemed in
spirits, as I judged from his having the ragged brim of his hat
turned up jauntily in front, as also from his goading forward
the beast with heels and bridle-rein: but not a whit cared she;
with her youth she had lost ambition and moved in slow and
graceless fashion, her neck drooping, and her nose greatly in
advance of her ears. Half an hour afterwards I was on the
way to assist in preparing for the approaching festivities. I,
however, was only a kind of secondary maid of honor, for first
and foremost upon all occasions of the kind was Ellen Blake,
and in this instance she had preceded me, and with her hair
in papers and her sleeves and skirt tucked up, came forth in a
kind of at-home-attire, mistress-of-the-house fashion, to welcome
me, a privilege she always assumed on occasions of the
kind.

In truth, Ellen really had a genius for managing the affairs
of other people, and for the time being felt the same interest
in whatever was being done as though it were her own.
She was also thought, in our neighborhood, to be “very good
company,” and therefore it is no wonder her services were
much in demand. Very ambitious about her work was Ellen,
and few persons could get more through in a day than she, in
fact there are few more faultless; nevertheless, there was one
objection which some of the most old-fashioned people urged
against her—she was dressy, and the rumor was just now
current that she had got a new “flat,” trimmed as full as it
could stick of blue ribbon and red artificial flowers, and also a
white dress flounced up to the very knees!

Already the quilt was in the frames and laid out, as the

marking was called; the chamber was all ready for the guests
and Ellen said she thought she had been pretty smart if she
did say it herself.

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

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

I fully agreed that Ellen had made the wisest arrangement;
and here I may as well briefly describe the room. It was
large, covering the space occupied by three rooms on the
ground floor, and next to the roof, so the quilt could be conveniently
attached to the rafters by ropes, and thus drawn up
out of the way in case it were not finished before nightfall.
The walls were unplastered, and the one on either side sloped
within a few feet of the floor, but the gable windows admitted
a sufficiency of light, and there was neither carpet nor furniture
in the way, except, indeed, the furnishing which Ellen
had contrived for the occasion, and which consisted chiefly of
divans, formed of boards and blocks, and cushioned with quilts
and the like. Besides these there were two or three barrels
covered over with table-cloths and designed to serve as hat-racks;
save these, there was no other furniture unless the
draperies formed of petticoats and trowsers here and there
suspended from pegs might be deemed such.

The rafters, too, were variously garnished with bags of
seeds, bunches of dried herbs, and hanks of yarn, together with
some fine specimens of extra large corn, having the husks
turned back from the yellow ears and twisted into braids, by

which it was hung for preservation and show. One more
finishing touch our combined ingenuity gave the room on the
morning of the day our guests were expected, consisting of
green boughs and decorations of flowers.

While we were busy with preparations in the kitchen the
day following my arrival, Mrs. Randall suddenly made her
appearance, wearing a faded dress, an old straw bonnet, and
bearing in one hand a satchel, and in the other an empty
basket.

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

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

No sooner had she tied on one of Mrs. Wetherbe's checked
aprons, and turned back her sleeves, than our trouble began;
of course she knew a better way to do every thing than we,
and the supper would not do at all, unless prepared under her
direction.

Very glad we were when Mrs. Wetherbe said, “Too many
cooks spoil the broth, and I guess the girls better have it their
own way.” But she was not to be dissuaded; she had come
to help, and she was sure she would rather be doing a little
than not.

She gave us accounts of all the balls, dinners, suppers, &c.,
at which she had been, and tried to impress upon us the necessity

of having our country quilting as much in the style of
them as we could.

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

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

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

“No, nor I don't mean to send no notes nor nothing,” said the
aunt, a little indignant; “it ain't like as if the queen was going to
make a quilting, I reckon.” But without heeding the negation,
Mrs. Randall continued to say she had brought out some gilt-edged
paper and several specimen cards, among which she
thought perhaps the most elegant would be, “Mr. and Mrs.
Wetherbe at home,” specifying the time, and addressed to whom
ever was designed to be invited. But all in vain the lady urged
the point; the old-fashioned aunt said she would have no such
mess written, that Helph might get on his horse and ride
through the neighborhood and ask the young people to come
to the quilting and wood-chopping.

There was but one thing left to mar the general happiness;
a rumor that Mrs. Wetherbe had hired a “nigger waiter” for
a week.

Many there were who didn't and couldn't believe it, but
others testified to the fact of having seen her with their own
eyes.

What with all our combined forces, preparations went actively
forward, and before the appointed day all was in readiness—coffee
ground, tea ready for steeping, chickens prepared
to broil, cakes and puddings baked, and all the extra saucers
filled with preserves.

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

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

“Well, have your own way and live the longer,” said the
mother; to which the son answered that such was his intention;
and accordingly, having procured the best buggy the
neighborhood afforded, and brushed coat and hat with extra
care, he set out for the city before sunrise of the long anticipated
day. Dinner was eaten earlier than usual, and at one
o'clock we were all prepared—Mrs. Wetherbe in the black
silk dress she had for twenty years; Ellen in her white
flounced dress, with a comb of enormous size, and a wreath of
flowers above her curls; but when “Emeline” made her appearance
our surprise burst forth in exclamations—she had
appropriated Jenny's new dress to herself.

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

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

And Jane Stilman had scarcely “taken off her things” when
Polly Harris was announced. Her dress was of thin white
muslin, and she wore a broad-brimmed Leghorn hat, set off
with a profusion of gay ribbons and flowers, notwithstanding
she had ridden on horseback; but in those times riding-dresses
were not in vogue.

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

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

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

Nimbly ran the fingers up and down and across the quilt,
and tongues moved no less nimbly; and though now and then
glances strayed away from the work to the fields, and suppressed
titters broke into loud laughter as one after another
the young men were seen with axes over their shoulders
wending towards the woods, the work went on bravely, and

Polly Harris soon called out, clapping her hands in triumph,
“Our side is ready to `roll.' ”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, I like them out of my sight,” answered Mehitable,
stitching fast. Upon hearing this the dimples deepened in
Hetty's cheeks, and the smile was as visible in her black eyes
as on her lips.

“I suppose you wish you had gone along,” said Mehitable
maliciously, “but I can tell you the young doctor is not there,
he was called away to the country about twelve o'clock, to a
man that took sick yesterday.” Hetty's face crimsoned a

little, but otherwise she manifested no annoyance, but replied
laughingly that she hoped he would get back before night.

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

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

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

When Hetty returned to the garret, her eyes were not so
bright as they had previously been, but the sadly subdued
manner made her only the prettier, and all, save the two
maidens alluded to, were ready to say and do something for
her pleasure. They, however, were not yet satisfied, and tipping
their tongues with the unkindest venom of all, began to

talk of a wealthy and accomplished young lady somewhere,
whom it was rumored the doctor was shortly to marry, in
spite of the little flirtations at home, that some people thought
meant something. Very coolly they talked of the young
lady's superior position and advantages, as though no humble,
loving heart shook under their words as beneath a storm of
arrows.

Opportunely came back the young girls from the woods,
and hearing the reports they had to make, of the number of
choppers, how many trees were felled, &c., the broken mirthfulness
was restored, though Hetty laughed less joyously, and
her elderly rivals maintained a dignified reserve.

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

5. CHAPTER V.

Beneath the glimmer of more candles than Mrs. Wetherbe
had previously burned at once, the supper was spread, and
very nice and plentiful it was; for, more mindful of the hungry
wood-choppers than of Mrs. Randall's notions of propriety,
there were at least a dozen broiled chickens, besides other
meats on the table I need not attempt a full description of

conserves and cakes, bread, pies and puddings, delicious tea
and coffee, with all the etceteras, which country housewifes
provide with liberal hands on occasions of this sort.

Very proud was Ellen, as she took the last survey previously
to sounding the horn for the “men-folks;” and well she might
be proud, for it was chiefly through her ingenuity and active
agency that all was nice and tasteful as it was.

Mrs. Randall still made herself officious, but with less assurance
than at first; and Ellen was in nowise inclined to yield
her position, and indeed almost the entire responsibility rested
upon her, for poor Mrs. Wetherbe was sadly out of spirits in
consequence of the non-appearance of Helph and Jenny. All
possible chances of evil she exaggerated, and in her simple
mind there were a thousand dangers which did not in reality
exist. In spite of the festivities about her the tears would
come. Likely enough, she said, the dear boy had got into the
canal or the river and was drownded, or his critter might have
become frightened, there were so many sceerry things in town,
and so have run away and broken every thing to pieces.

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

Her beauty had once been of a showy order, and indeed she
was not yet very much faded, and on this occasion her hair
was tastefully arranged, and though her gown was of calico,
she was really the best dressed woman in the assembly. Of
this she seemed aware, and glided into flirtations with the

country beaux in a free and easy way, which greatly surprised
some of us unsophisticated lassies—in fact, one or two elderly
bachelors were sorely disappointed, as well as amazed, when
they knew that the lady from town was none other than
Helph's mother! I cannot remember the time when my animal
spirits had much of the careless buoyancy which makes
youth so blessed, and at the time I write of I was little more
than a passive observer, and for this reason, perhaps, I remember
more correctly the incidents of the evening.

The table was spread among the trees in the door-yard,
which was all illuminated with tallow candles; the snowy
linen waved in the breeze, and the fragrance of tea and coffee
was for the time being pleasanter than flowers. But flowers
I remember were in requisition, and such as were in bloom,
large or small, bright or pale, were gathered for adornment of
tresses, curled and braided with elaborate care. At a later
hour some of them were transferred to the buttonholes of
favored admirers.

What an outbreak of merriment there was, when down the
twilight hill that sloped against the woods came the little band
of choppers, with coats swung upon their arms and axes
gleaming over their shoulders. Every thing became irresistibly
funny, and from the beds of poppies and hollyhocks went
peals of mingled jests and laughter.

The quilt was finished, but Mehitable and Elizabeth remained
close within the chamber, whether to contemplate the
completed work, or to regale themselves with a little gossip of
their own, I do not know.

A large tin lantern was placed on the top of the pump, and
beside it stood a wash-tub filled with water which was intended
to serve, and did serve, as a general basin for the ablutions
of the young men. Besides the usual “roller-towel,”

which hung by the kitchen door, there were two or three
extra ones attached to the boughs of the apple-tree by the
well; and the bar of yellow soap procured for the occasion,
lay on a shingle conveniently at hand, while a paper comb-case
dangled from a bough betwixt the towels.

These toilet facilities were deemed by some of the party
quite superfluous, and their wooden pocket-combs and handkerchiefs
were modestly preferred. During the “fixing up”
the exuberance of spirits found vent in liberal splashing and
dashing of water upon each other, as also in wrestling bouts
and mere wordy warfare, at the conclusion of which the more
aristocratic of the gentlemen resumed their coats, while others,
disdaining ceremony, remained not only at the supper, but
during the entire evening, “in their shirt sleeves,” and with
silk handkerchiefs bound about their waists after the fashion
of reapers.

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

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

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

“Tea or coffee, Mehitable?” she said next. But the lady
addressed didn't drink either—coffee made her drowsy-like,
and if she should drink a cup of tea she should not sleep a wink
all night.

Elizabeth said Mehitt was just like herself—she drank a

great deal, and strong. This joke produced much laughter,
and indeed the mirthfulness was quite irrepressible; on the
part of the ladies, because of the joyous occasion and their
greater excitability; and on that of the gentlemen, because of
the green and yellow twisted bottles that had glistened that
afternoon in the ivy that grew along the woods; even more
for this perhaps than for the bright eyes opposite.

One said she drank her tea naked; another, that Ellen might
give her a half-a-cup—she would rather have a little and have
it good, as to have a good deal and not have it good. And
in this she meant not the slightest offence or insinuation. “I
hope,” said Mr. Wetherbe, speaking in a tremulous voice, and
pushing back his thin gray hair, “I hope you will none of you
think hard of my woman for not coming to sarve you herself—
she is in the shader of trouble, but she, as well as myself,
thanks you all for the good turn you have done us, and wishes
you to make yourselves at home, and frolic as long as you are
a mind to,” and the good old man retired to the house to give
his wife such comfort as he could. The shadow of their sorrow
did not rest long upon the group at the table, and for its
temporary suppression the mirth was louder than before.
There were one or two exceptions, however, among the gay
company. Poor Hetty Day, as her eyes ran along the line of
smiling faces and failed of the object of their search they
drooped heavily, and her smiles and words were alike forced.
Between her and all the gayety stood the vision of a fair
lady conjured by the evil words of Mehitable and Elizabeth,
and scarcely would the tears stay back any longer when her
light-hearted neighbors rallied her as to the cause of her dejection.
At the sound of a hoofstroke on the highway her
quick and deep attention betrayed the interest she felt in the
absent doctor.

“Why hast thou no music on thy tongue, fair maiden?”
asked a pale slender young man sitting near her; and looking
up, her eyes encountered the blue melancholy orbs of a young
cooper, who had lately neglected the adze for the pen, in the
use of which, by the way, he was not likely to obtain much
facility.

His flaxen hair hung in curls down his shoulders, he wore
his collar reversed, and a sprig of cedar in the buttonhole of
his vest, which was of red and yellow colors, otherwise his
dress was not fantastical, though he presented the appearance
of one whose inclinations outstripped his means, perhaps. A
gold chain attached to a silver watch, and a bracelet of hair
on the left wrist, fastened with a small tinsel clasp, evinced an
undisciplined taste, though his face attested natural refinement.
He had recently published in the “Ladies' Garland” two poems,
entitled and opening as follows:

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

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

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

Ah, me, who of us after all are much wiser; for on bases as
unsubstantial have we not at one time or another rested some
gorgeous fabric, whose turrets were to darken among the
stars.

Time soon enough strips the future of its phantasy—drives
aside the softening mists, and reveals the hard and sharp
realities of things.

But, to return—merry were the guests generally, and ample
justice they did to the viands before them, partly in response
to excellent appetites, and partly in answer to the urgent entreaties
of Ellen, though she constantly depreciated her culinary
skill, and reiterated again and again that she had nothing
very inviting. But her praises were on every tongue, and her
hands were more than busy with the much service required of
them, but this added to her happiness; and as she glided up

and down the long table, serving the tea and coffee, snuffing
the candles, or urging the most bashful to be helped to a little
of this or that, just to please her, or to put a good taste in
their mouths, she was the very personification of old-fashioned
country hospitality. Every one liked Ellen, for she was one
of those who always forget themselves when there is any thing
to do for others.

At length, one of the young men who had had communication
with the bottles I mentioned as lying cool among the ivy
during the afternoon, protested that he would bring a rail to
serve as a pry, unless his companions desisted from further
eating of their own free will. “That is right, Bill,” called
out one of nature kindred in bluntness and coarseness, “here
is a fellow wants choking off.” “I own up to that,” said another,
“I have eaten about a bushel, I guess.” “If I had a
dollar for every mouthful you have eaten,” said one, “I
wouldn't thank nobody for being kin to me.” “Well,” answered
the person alluded to, “if I have busted a couple of
buttons off my vest, I don't think you are a fellow that will be
likely to let much bread mould.” “La, how you young men
do run on,” said Ellen, neither surprised nor offended at the
coarse freedom of the jests; and amid roars of laughter the
party arose, and many of the gentlemen resorted to the whiskey
bottles anew, for the sake of keeping up their spirits,
as they said; after which, with lighted cigars in their mouths,
they “locked arms” with the ladies, and talked sentiment in
the moonlight as they strolled in separate pairs, previously to
assembling in the garret for the usual order of exercises upon
such occasions.

Meantime the candles were mostly carried thither by certain
forlorn maidens, who said they were afraid of the night
air, and from the open windows rung out old hymns—“How

tedious and tasteless the hours,” “Come thou fount of every
blessing,” &c.

Hidden by shadows, and sitting with folded arms upon a
topmost fence-rail, P.Joel Springer listened alone to the dirge-like
sighing of the wind, and the dismal hootings of the owl.

And our good hostess, the while, could neither be prevailed
upon to eat or sleep, even though her excellent spouse assured
her that Helph was safe enough, and that she knew right well
how often he spent the night from home in his young days,
and that too when no accident had befallen him; but the dear
old lady refused to be comforted—every unusual noise to her
fancy was somebody bringing Helph home dead.

Mr. Wetherbe had the autumn passed missed a land in the
sowing of his wheat field, and that she had always heard say
was a sure sign of death.

In couples, already engaged for the first play, the strollers
came in at last, and what a tempest of laughter and fun there
was—I cannot describe it. The entertainment which passed
current then is not the fashion of these times, but I in nowise
exaggerate the manners or pastimes of the time I write
about. Some awkward embarrassment followed the assembling
in the garret under the blaze of the many candles, but
when it was whispered that Jo Allen, the most genial and
good-hearted fellow of them all, had just been taken home on
horseback, and that Abner Gibbs, for his better security, had
ridden behind him, mirth flowed anew, and was considered to
flow from a most legitimate source. Others, it was more privately
rumored, had taken a drop too much, and would not be
in trim to see the girls “safe home” that night.

“Come,” said Ellen, as she entered the room last of all, having
been detained, beyond her other duties, in kindly endeavors
to induce Jo Allen to drink sweet milk as an antidote:

“come, why don't some of you start a play?” But all protested
they didn't know a single thing, and insisted that Ellen
should herself “start the play.”

“Hunt the Key” was proposed, and the whole party formed
into a circle, with hand joined to hand, and were directed to
move rapidly round and round, during which process, a key
was attached to the coat of some unsuspecting individual, who
was then selected to find it, being informed that it was in the
keeping of some one present. The circle then resumed its
gyrations, and the search began by examining pockets and
forcing apart the interlocked hands, a procedure relished with
great gusto, all persons except the searcher for the key being
well aware of its whereabouts.

Soon all diffidence vanished, and

rung far across the meadows, and was followed by a series of
rude rhyming, sung as accompaniments to the playing.
was performed to admiration, an exchange of kisses being required,
of course. Then came selling of pawns and paying
penalties, a requisition no less agreeable.
was enacted by one party choosing a mate from the other sex,
and promenading to the tune of a slight flirtation.

But the climax of the evening was reserved till a late hour
and consisted of the following acting, called Love and War.

Two chairs were placed some three feet apart, over which
a quilt was carefully spread, so as seemingly to form a divan,
a lady being seated on either chair, during which arrangement
the gentlemen withdrew to the lower apartments, to be
separately admitted again when all was prepared. A rap on
the door announced an applicant for admission, who was immediately
conducted by the master of ceremonies to the
treacherous divan and presented to the ladies, being asked at
the same time which he preferred, love or war, and no matter
what he answered, requested to sit between them, they at the
same time rising and precipitating their innocent admirer to
the ground, a denouement followed by the most boisterous
applause.

“I guess,” said Mehitable, “whispering in a congratulatory
way to Elizabeth, “that Hetty will have to get home the best
way she can, I haven't seen any body ask her for her company.”
But just then there was a little bustle at the door, a
murmur of congratulations and regrets, over which sounded
the exclamation, “just in time to see the cat die;” Mehitable
raised herself on tiptoe—the doctor was come. A moment
afterwards he stood beside Hetty, who was blushing and
smiling—genuine smiles this time; but in answer to some
whispered words she shook her head a little sadly, as it seemed,
and the doctor's brow darkened with a frown. Of this Mr.
P. Joel Springer was not unobservant, and coming forward,
reluctantly, as he said, relinquished the pleasure he had expected.
“Adieu, fair maiden,” he said, “alone I take my
lonely way, communing with the stars.”

Hetty and the doctor were next to go, and then came a
general breaking up. Horses were saddled, and sleepy colts

left the warm dimples in the grass and followed slowly the
gallants walking beside the ladies as they rode. Some there
were, too, walking across the fields, and others through the
dusty highway, all mated as pleased them, except Mehitable
and Elizabeth, who both rode one horse, comforting each other
with the assurance that young men were very great fools.

And so we take our leave of them, as in separate pairs they
wend homeward, each gentleman with the slippers of his ladylove
in his pocket, and her mammoth comb in his hat.

6. CHAPTER VI.

In our last chapter we gave some account of Mrs. Weatherbe's
quilting, and of the sorrow and disappointment of the good
lady on the oecasion; and we now propose to return to Helph,
and give you some particulars of the night as it passed with
him. It was near noon when he drew rein before the house
of his father, with a heart full of happy anticipations for the
afternoon and evening; but his bright dream was destined
quickly to darken away to the soberest reality of his life. His
father met him in the hall with a face flushed, and taking his
hand with some pretence of cordiality, said in an irritable
tone, and as though he had not the slightest idea of his errand—
“Why, my son Helph, what in the devil's name has brought
you?”

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

“What in the devil's name is a man to do, my son Helph?”
he said; “your poor father hasn't had a meal's victuals fit for

a dog to eat, since your mother went into the country: how
is she? poor woman. I think I'll just get into your buggy,
boy, and run out and bring your mother home; things will
all go to ruin in two days more—old black Kitty aint worth a
cuss, and Jenny aint worth another.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

In one end of the long low garret, unplastered and comfortless

from the heat in summer and the cold in winter, there was
a cot bed, an old dilapidated trunk, a broken work-stand, a
small cracked looking-glass, and a strip of faded carpet, denominated,
by courtesy, Jenny's room; and here, seated on a
chair without any back, sat the poor girl, stitching shirts for
her adopted brothers, when he, who from some cause or other
never called her sister, appeared suddenly before her. Smiling,
she ran forward to meet him, but suddenly checking herself,
she blushed deeply, and the exclamation, “Dear Helph,” that
rose to her lips, was subdued and formalized to simple Helphenstein.
The cheek that was smooth when she saw him last,
was darkened into manhood now, and the arm remained passive
that had always thrown itself lovingly about his neck;
but in the new timidity, she appeared only the more beautiful
in the eyes of her admirer; and if she declined the old expressions
of fondness, he did not.

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

“Come, Jenny,” said Helph, when the first greeting was
over, “I have come for you; go, get ready as soon as possible.”

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

And then came inquiries about the new dress of which he
had been informed, and though for a time the girl hesitated,
he drew from her at last the confession, that it had been appropriated
by his mother, under the promise of procuring for
her another when she should have made a dozen shirts to earn
it. An exclamation that evinced little filial reverence found

expression—then as he soothed and sympathized, the boyish
affection was deepened more and more by pity.

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

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

Certainly she would like of all things to go to the quilting,
and the more, perhaps, that Helph was come for her; but in
no time of her life her poverty seemed so painful a thing.
During the past week she had examined her scanty wardrobe
repeatedly—her shoes, too, were down at the heel and out at
the toe—to go decently was quite impossible, and yet she
could not suppress the desire, nor refrain from thinking over
and over, if this dress was not quite so much faded, or if that
were not so short and outgrown, and then if she had money
to buy a pair of shoes, and could borrow a neck-ribbon and
collar—in short, if things were a little better than they were,
she might go, and perhaps, in the night, deficiencies would be
less noticeable.

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

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

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

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

The last words were bitter and sarcastic, and thus in anger
and sorrow began the love-making of Helph and Jenny.

Down the thinly-wooded hills to the west of the great city,
reached the long shadows of the sunset. The streets were
crowded with mechanics hurrying homeward—in one hand
the little tin pail in which the dinner had been carried, and in
the other a toy for the baby, perhaps, or a pound of soap or
of meat for the good wife.

The smoke curled upward from the chimneys of the
suburban districts, and little rustic girls and boys were seen
in all directions, hurrying homeward with their arms full of
shavings—old women, too, with their bags of rags, betook
themselves somewhere—Heaven only knows whether they had
any homes, or where they went—at any rate, with backs bent
under their awful burdens, they turned into lanes and alleys, and
disappeared. The tired dray-horses walked faster and nimbler
as they smelled the oats in the manger; and here and there, in
the less frequented streets, bands of schoolboys and girls drove
their hoops, or linked their arms and skipped laughingly up
and down the pavement; while now and then a pair of older
children strolled in happiness, for that they dreamed of happier

times to come. The reflection of the beautiful things in the
future made the present bright, and well it is that it is so, for
the splendor fades from our approach, and it is only in dreams
that we find ourselves shadowed by the glory.

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

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

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

Suddenly appeared before them a miserably clad little boy,
the one mentioned in a previous chapter as coming for money,
and now, after a moment's hesitancy, on seeing a stranger,
he laid his head in the lap of Jenny, and cried aloud.

Stooping over him, she smoothed back his hair and kissed
his forehead; and in choked and broken utterances he made
known his mournful errand: little Willie was very sick, and
Jenny was wanted at home.

Few preparations were required. Helph would not hear of
her going alone; and in the new and terrific fear, all her pride
vanished, and she did not remonstrate, though she knew all
the wretchedness of poverty that would be bared before him.
Close folding the hand of her little brother in hers, and with
tears dimming her eyes, she silently led the way.

It was night, and the lights of a hundred windows shone
down upon them, when, turning to her young protector, she
said, in a voice trembling with both shame and sorrow, perhaps,
“This is the place.” The house was a tolerably new
one, built of brick very roughly, but substantially, fronting
about a hundred feet on an alley, and five stories in height.

It was situated in the meanest suburb of the city, on an unpaved
street, and opposite a ruinous graveyard, and had been
erected on the cheapest possible plan, and with special reference
to the poorest class of the community. Scarcely had the
wealthy proprietor an opportunity of posting bills announcing
rooms to let, so soon were they taken; and with its miserable
accommodations and crowded with people who were almost
paupers, it was a perfect hive of misery. Porch above porch
opened out on the alley, and served as door-yards to the different
apartments—places for the drying of miserable rags—
play-grounds for the children—and a look-out for the decrepit
old women on sunny afternoons.

Dish-water, washing suds and all, from the tea and coffee
grounds to all manner of picked bones and other refuse, were
dashed down from these tiers of porches to the ground below,
so that a more filthy and in all ways unendurable place can

scarcely be imagined than was presented in the vicinity of this
money-making device, or house of terrible refuge.

Leaning against the balusters, and smoking and talking, or
quarrelling and swearing, were groups of men who might be
counted by tens and twenties; and the feeble querulous tones
of woman, now and then, sounded among the others. A little
apart from one of these groups of ignorant disputants, sat an
old crone, combing her gray hair by the light of a tallow candle;
others were ironing and washing dishes; while others,
again, lolled listlessly and gracelessly about, listening to, and
sometimes taking part in, the conversation.

Children, half naked, were playing among the pools of stagnant
water, and now and then pelting each other with the
heads of fishes and the slimy bones caught up at random; and
one group, more vicious than the rest, were diverting themselves
by throwing stones at an old cat that lay half in and
half out of a puddle, responding by feeble kicks as the rough
missiles struck against her.

Depravity, as well as poverty, had joined itself to that miserable
congregation. Smoke issued thick from some of the
chimneys, full of the odors of mutton and coffee, and as they
mixed with the vile stenches that thickened the atmosphere
near the ground, Helph, who had been accustomed to the free
air of the country, fresh with the scents of hay-fields and orchards,
found it hard to suppress the exclamation of disgust
and loathing that rose to his lips as they turned to the alley
and his senses apprehended in a twinkling what I have been
so long in describing.

Up the steep narrow wooden stairs, flight after flight they
passed, catching through the open doors of the different apartments
as they did so, glimpses of the same squalid character—
greasy smoking stoves, dirty beds. ragged women and children,

with here and there dozing dogs, or men prostrate on
the bare floors, either from weariness or drunkenness, and
meagerly-spread tables, and cradles, and creeping and crying
and sleeping babies, all in close proximity.

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

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

“Oh mother,” said Jenny, treading softly and speaking low.
Tears filled the mild blue eyes, and the lip trembled as it
answered, “It is almost over—he does not know me any
more.”

And forgetting, in the blind fondness of the mother, the
darkness and the sorrow and the pain, and worst of all, the
contagion of evil example, from which he was about to be
free, she buried her face in her hands, and shook with convulsive
agony. All the deprivation and weariness and struggle
that had sometimes seemed to her so hard, were in this new
sorrow as nothing; with her baby laughing in her arms, as he
had been last week, she would be strong to front the most
miserable fate.

Tie after tie may be unbound from the heart, as the steps
climb the rough steep that goes up to power, for the sweet
household affections unwind themselves more and more as the

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

In some chink of the wall the cricket chirped, the same
quick short sound, over and over to itself, and about the candle
circled and fluttered the gray-winged moths heedless of

their perished fellows; on the table stood a painted bucket
half filled with tepid water, and beside it a brown jug and
broken glass.

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

From the white dome of St. Peter's sounded the silvery
chime of the midnight: the sick child had fallen asleep an
hour before, but now his eyes opened full upon his mother,
and his white lips worked faintly. “Jenny,” she said, in a
tone of low but fearful distinctness—for with her head on the
bedside she was fast dozing into forgetfulness—“he is going—going
home.” “Home,” he repeated, sweetly, and that
was the last word he ever said. The young man came forward
hastily—the soft light of a setting star drifted across the pillow,
and in its pale splendor he laid the hands together, and
smoothed the death-dampened curls.

7. CHAPTER VII.

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

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

I know it, oh, I know it!” she sobbed, “but this silence
seems so terrible; I want them to wake and speak to me, and
yet,” she added, after a moment, “I know not what I want.
I only know that my little darling will not wake in the morning—oh,”
she continued, “he was the loveliest and the best of
all—he never cried when he was hurt, like other children,
nor gave me trouble in any way;” and then she recounted
(feeding her sorrow with the memory) all his endearing little
ways, from the first conscious smiling to the last word he had
spoken; numbered over the slips he had worn and the color
of them, saying how pretty he had thought the blue one was,
and how proud he had been of the pink one with the ruffled
sleeves, and how often she had lifted him up to the broken
looking-glass to see the baby, as he called himself, for that he
always wanted to see the curls she made for him.

Sometimes she had crossed him, she wished now she had
never done so, and sometimes she had neglected him when she
had thought herself too busy to attend to his little wants; now
that all was irreparable, she blamed herself harshly, and
thought how much better she might have done.

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

“The dear baby,” she said, taking his cold, stiffening feet

in her hand, “he never had any shoes, and I promised so often
to get them.”

“They are warm enough now,” interposed Jenny.

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

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

But, alas, it was not even their poor privilege to weep uninterrupted,
and shuddering they grew still, when slowly and
heavily climbing the narrow and dark stairs, sounded the
well-known step of the inebriate husband and father. A minute
the numb and clumsy hand fumbled about the door-latch,
and then with a hiokup and a half articulate oath, the man,
if man he might be called, staggered and stumbled into the
room.

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

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

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

“She had lost a baby too,” she said, “and when her breasts
were acning with the milk, she felt as if she wanted to be
gwine to it wharever it were, for that she couldn't resist without
it no ways, but she did, and arter a while she got over it.
Another son,” she said, “was sparred to grow up and do a heap
of hard work; he was away from her a piece down the river,
and kep a liberty stable, and at last, when he had saved
a'most money enough, a vile-tempered critter kicked out his
brains, and dat ar was his last. And so,” said Aunt Kitty,
“it was wust for de one dat growed up, arter all.”

The stars grew motionless among the clouds, and blank and
weary the night went by; gray began to dilute the heavy
darkness, and adown the gaps of the thick woods away over
the eastern hills, the chilly river of morning light came
pouring in.

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

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

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

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

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

“I always told you,” interposed the wife, “that girl was a
mean, low-lived thing; and it was none of my doings, the
taking her from the washing-tub, where she belongs, and
making her as good as any of us. I tell you them kind of
folks must be kept down, and I always told you so.”

“You always told me great things,” said the husband, col

oring with rage; “what in the devil's name is there you don't
know, I wonder.”

“Well, sir,” she answered, speaking very low and calmly—
“there is one thing I didn't know till it was too late.”

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

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

“What in the devil's name is the girl to you, I'd like to
know,” Mr. Randall said.

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

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

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

“A good thing,” said Mr. Randall, “one brat less to be
taken care of, but that's no reason the girl should stay away;

if the young one is dead, she can't bring it to life, nor dig a
hole to put it in, either.”

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

Such family altercations as we have recorded may be
thought exceedingly rare—I sincerely hope they are, but I
have not exaggerated the truth in reference to the people I
write of.

Ignorant, passionate, vulgar—nothing redeemed them from
the lowest grade of society but money, and a tremendous
influence it was in their favor.

In all public meetings, especially those having any reference
to the poor, Mr. Randall was a prominent personage. Upon
more occasions than one he had set down large figures for
charitable purposes; in short, his position was that of an eminent
and honorable citizen, when, in fact, a man guilty of
more little meanness and niggardliness, a man in all ways so
debased, might scarcely anywhere be found. The drunkard
whom he affected to despise, had often a less depraved appetite
than he, for though he did not reel and stagger and lie in
the gutter, it was only habitual indulgence in strong drinks
which rendered him impervious to their more debilitating
effects. He lay on the sofa at home, and swore and grumbled
and hickuped, and drank, and drank, and drank. His children
did not respect him, and how should they, when the whole
course of his conduct was calculated to inspire disgust and
abhorrence in every heart naturally endowed with any notions
of right. The two bullying, beardless sons, who had grown
up under his immediate influence, were precociously depraved,

and possessed scarcely a redeeming quality, and the younger
ones were treading close in their footsteps. Helph, however,
possessed some of the ennobling attributes of manhood. Blunt
and plain and rustic he was, to be sure, but he was frank and
honest and sincere; industrious, sober, and affectionate, alike
averse to the exactions and impositions of his mother, and the
niggardly withholdings of his father.

He was neither ashamed of the toil-hardened hands that
earned his daily bread, nor proud for that his mother's earrings
dangled to her shoulders, and that her dress was gay and
expensive, or that his father was president of a bank, and
lived in a fine house.

Independent and straightforward, and for the most part
saving enough—indeed he might give himself some pains to
find a lost shilling, yet where he saw real need he would give
it with as much pleasure as he found it.

Towards evening Jenny returned home, pale and sad and
suffering, but there were no little kindnesses, no softness of
word or manner towards her—she was required at once to re
sume work, and admonished to retrieve lost time, for that
crying would only make herself sick, and do no good. Helph,
however, subdued his bluff kindness into tenderness never
manifested towards her before, and an occasional smile through
tears was an over payment.

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

We have been talking of our own love, said they, how hard
we should have thought it to be parted, and seeing that you

really are attached to each other, we oppose no obstacle; a
little delay is all we ask: Jenny shall go to school for a year,
they said, and you, Helphh, will have more experience, and
more means, perhaps, at your command.

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

Deep midnight overspread the city; the clouds hung low
and gloomy, and the atmosphere was close and oppressive,
when stealthily threading through by-ways and alleys, now
stopping and looking noiselessly backward and forward, and
then with trembling and unsteady steps sliding forward, a man
past the prime of life, miserably clad, might have been seen.
He wore no hat, his gray hair was matted together, and over
one eye there was a purple and ghastly cut from which he
seemed to have torn the bandage, for in one hand he held a
cloth spotted with blood.

He apparently thought himself pursued by some enemy
from whom he was endeavoring to escape, and now and then
huddled in some dark nook whence his eyes, bright with insanity,
peered vigilantly about. So, by fits and starts, he made
his way to the old graveyard mentioned in the previous chapter.
The trees stood still together, for there was scarcely a
breath of air, and noiselessly moving among the monuments
and crosses and low headstones, the man went, pausing not
till he came to a little, new grave; the mound smooth-heaped
and fresh.

“Here,” he said, squatting on the ground and digging
madly into the earth with his hands, “here, by h—ll, is the
very place they put him, d—n them! but his mother shall

have him back, I ain't so drunk that I can't dig him up,” and
pausing to listen now and then he soon flattened the mound.

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

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

Towards the deepest water the wretched inebriate seemed
irresistibly drawn, and holding with one hand to a sapling that
grew in the bank, he leaned far out and tried the depth with
a slender pole. He then retreated, and seemed struggling as
with a fierce temptation, drew near again and with his foot
broke off shelving weights of earth and watched their plashing
and sinking—a moment he lifted his eyes to heaven—there
was a heavier plunge, and the man was gone from the bank.
A wild cry rose piercing through the darkness; the crimson
top of a clump of iron weeds that grew low in the bank was
drawn suddenly under the water. as if the hand reached for

help—then the cry and the plashing was still, and the waves
closed together. A week afterwards the swollen corpse of
Jenny's father was drawn from the stream.

8. CHAPTER VIII.

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

“What on airth now?” she said, placing her hands on
either hip, and eyeing him in sorrowful amazement. A great
deal of pains had been lavished on the making of the sled, the
runners were shod with iron, and it was nicely painted; indeed
Helph had considered it quite an article of bijoutry, and
now as he dragged it forth to light, dusted it with his handkerchief
and brushed the spider-webs from among its slender
beams, he found it hard to suppress the old admiration for his
beautiful handiwork. Nevertheless, when he found himself
observed, he gave it a rough toss which lodged it broken and
ruined among some rubbish, and drawing his hat over his
eyes to conceal from them the wreck, he strode away without
at all noticing his aunt, who immediately went in search of
her good man, who (in her estimation at least) knew almost
every thing, to ask an explanation of the boy's unaccountable
conduct.

But the strange freaks of the young man were not yet at
an end, and on returning to the house he took from a nail
beneath the looking-glass a string of speckled birds'-eggs and

the long silvery skin of a snake, where they had long hung,
the admiration of all visitors, and threw them carelessly into
the fire, thereby sending a sharp pang through the heart of
Aunt Wetherbe, if not through his own. He next took from
the joist a bundle of arrows and darts, the latter cut in fanciful
shapes, and which he had made at various times to amuse his
leisure, and crushed them together in a box of kindlings, saying
in answer to the remonstrance of his relative, that was all
they were good for.

From the pockets of coats and trowsers he was observed at
various times to make sundry ejectments, such as the election
tickets of former years, variously colored, yellow, blue, and
pink, together with bits of twine, brass-headed nails, &c.
But when he brought from an out-house a squirrel's cage,
where many a captive had been civilized into tricks never
dreamed of in its wild swingings from bough to bough, Aunt
Wetherbe took it from his hands just as she had done when he
was a wayward boy, exclaiming with real displeasure, “Lord-a-mercy,
child, has the old boy himself got into you!” But
Helph soon proved that he was not possessed of the evil one,
by the manliness with which he talked of the coming election,
discussing shrewdly the merits of the several candidates. All
the apparatus pertaining to shaving operations were shortly
procured, and Helph was observed to spend much of his time
in their examination and careful preparation, though no special
necessity for their use was observable, and hitherto the old
razor of his uncle had only now and then been brought into
requisition.

When the first flush of exuberant manhood had subsided, a
thoughtful and almost sorrowful feeling pervaded the dreams
of the young man; he kept much alone, knit his brows, and
answered vaguely when questioned. At last he abruptly announced

his intention of beginning the world for himself. He
would sell his horse and the various farming implements he
possessed, together with the two young oxen that he had
played with and petted, and taught to plough and draw the
cart, and with the means thus acquired he would procure a
small shop in the vicinity of the great city, and resume his
blacksmithing.

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

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

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

It was soon concluded to hurry the preparations of his departure,
so that he might get fairly settled before the coming
on of cold weather, and a list of goods and chattels to be sold
at public vendue on a specified day, was made out, and bills
posted on the schoolhouse, at the cross-roads, and in the bar-room
of the tavern, stating the time and place of sale. Ellen
Blake was sent for in haste to come right away and make up
half a dozen shirts, and the provident old lady briskly plied the
knitting-needles, that her nephew might lack for nothing. All
talked gayly of the new project, but the gayety was assumed,
and Ellen herself, with all her powers of making sombre things
take cheerful aspects, felt that she succeeded illy.

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

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

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

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

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

“My money is as good as any man's,” said the butcher, and
throwing himself from the saddle he approached the stall, and
after walking once or twice around the unconsciously doomed
animals, and having pinched their hides with his fingers, he
offered for them a larger sum than Helph expected; he however
shut his eyes to the selfish advantage, saying he hoped to
sell them to some neighbor who would keep and be kind to
them.

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

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

From amongst a bunch of quills that had remained in the
old desk from time immemorial, he selected one with great
care, and having rubbed his pocket-knife across the toe of his
boot for an hour or more, there began a search for ink, of
which his uncle told him there was a good bottle full on the
upper shelf of the cupboard. But said bottle was not to be
found, and after a good deal of rummaging and some questioning
of Aunt Wetherbe, it was finally ascertained that the ink
alluded to must have been bought ten or twelve years previously,
and that only some dry grounds remained of it now
in the bottom of a broken inkstand: to this a little vinegar
was added, and having shaken it thoroughly, the young man
concluded it would do. More than once during all this preparation,

he had been asked what he was going to do, for
writing was not done in the family except on eventful occasions,
but the question elicited no answer more direct than
“nothing much,” and so at last with a sheet of foolscap, ink,
and quill, he retired to his own room—Aunt Wetherbe having
first stuck a pin in the candle, indicating the portion he was
privileged to burn.

Whether more or less candle were consumed, I am not ad
vised, but that a letter was written, I have good authority for
believing. Murder will out, there is no doubt about that, and
the day following the writing Aunt Wetherbe chanced to
have occasion to untie a bundle of herbs that in a pillow-case
had been suspended from the ceiling of Helph's room for a
long time, and what should she find but a letter addressed to
Jenny Mitchel, fantastically folded and sealed with four red
wafers, where it had evidently been placed to await a secret
opportunity of conveyance to the post-office. Long was the
whispered conference between the old lady and Ellen that
followed this discovery; very indignant was the aunt at first,
for old people are too apt to regard love and marriage in the
young as highly improper, but Ellen, whose regard for matrimony
was certainly more lenient, exerted her liveliest influence
in behalf of the young people, nor were her efforts unsuccessful,
and unobtrusive silence was resolved upon.

During this little excitement in doors, there was much noise
and bustle without; Helph's young horse was gayly caparisoned,
and bearing proudly various riders up and down the
space where, among ploughs, harrows, scythes, &c., a number
of farmers were gathered, discussing politics, smoking, and
shrewdly calculating how much they could afford to bid for
this article or that. Yoked together, and chewing their cuds
very contentedly, stood the young, plump oxen of which I have

spoken, but no one admired them with the design of purchasing.

The vendue was soon over, and all sold readily and well but
the oxen. The sleek bay was gone, proudly arching his neck
to the hand of a new master, and the farmers brought their
teams to carry home whatever they had purchased, and Helph
half sighed as one after another put into his hand the money
for which he had sold them.

As he lingered at the stile he saw approaching a large flock
of sheep; closely huddled they were, and the red chalk marks
on their sides indicated their destiny; close behind came a
mingled group of cows, calves, and oxen; all driven by the
butcher mentioned before.

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

At first Helph positively declined selling them, but he didn't
want them; it was very uncertain when an opportunity of
disposing of them as he wished, would recur, and when the
butcher added something to his first liberal offer, he replied,
“I suppose, sir, you will have to take them;” and riding into
the yard, he drove them roughly forth with whip and voice
from the manger of hay and the deep bed of straw. Free
from the yoke they were, and yet they came side by side and
with their heads bowed close together just as they had been
accustomed to work. Passing their young master, they turned
towards him their great mournful eyes, reproachfully, he
thought, and crushing the price of them in his hand, he walked
hastily towards the house.

“The bad, old wretch,” exclaimed Ellen, looking towards the
butcher, as she stood on the porch wiping her eyes with the
sleeve of the shirt she was making, and just within the door

sat Aunt Wetherbe, her face smothered in a towel, and crying
like a child.

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

Poor youth! his heart was almost breaking—he had no
concealments now, and very frankly told the story of his love,
and what had been his purposes for the future. Mr. and Mrs.
Randall had given up their house—gone abroad, and taken
Jenny with them, under the pretext of giving her a thorough
education in England. But the young lover felt instinctively
that she was separated from him for a widely different purpose.

Poor faithful Aunt Kitty had been dismissed without a shilling
above her scanty earnings, to work, old and disabled as
she was, or die a beggar. After much inquiry, he had learned
that she had obtained an engagement at an asylum as a servant
for the sick.

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

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

But he would not be comforted—Jenny had not left a single
line to give him assurance or hope, and even if she thought of
him now, she would forget him in the new life that was before
her. All this was plausible, but Ellen's efforts were not altogether
idle; and when she offered to go with him to the city

and see Aunt Kitty, who perhaps might throw some light upon
the sudden movement, he began to feel hopeful and cheerful
almost: for of all eyes, those of a lover are the quickest to
see the light.

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

As my eye glanced down the beds of suffering, it was arrested
by the corpse of the poor old woman—gone at last. I

shuddered and stood still as the two haggish-looking old
women wrapped and pinned the sheet about the stiffening
limbs, with as much imbecile glee as they apparently were
capable of. “What in Heaven's name are you laughing at?”
said Helph, approaching them. “Just to think of sarving a
dead nigger,” tittered one; and looking in his face, she drew
from her pocket a sealed letter, saying, “May be you can tell
who this is for—we found it in her bosom when we went to
dress her.” It was a letter from Jenny to himself: poor Aunt
Kitty had been faithful to the last.

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

Jenny's letter proved a wonderful solace, and cheerfulness
and elasticity gradually came back; but when, at the expiration
of a year, his parents returned without her, and bringing
the report of her recreancy and marriage, all courage and
ambition deserted him, and years and years and years went by,
during which he lived in melancholy isolation. Poor youth!
he had no liking for quiltings and wood-choppings any more.

Nearly fifteen years were gone since Jenny crossed the sea,
and country belles had bloomed and faded before his eyes,
without winning from him special regard: when, as he sat
before a blazing hickory fire one evening, waiting for Aunt

Weatherbe, who still enjoyed a green old age, to bring to the
table the tea and short-cake, there was a quick, lively tap on
the door, and the next moment, in the full maturity of womanhood,
but blushing and laughing like the girl of years ago,
Jenny stood in the midst of the startled group—Jenny Mitchel
still! I need not speak of the base desertion and downright
falsehood of her adopted parents, of her long struggle with
sorrow and poverty, striving the while to bind her heart from
breaking for the faithlessness of her lover, whom she was
taught to believe had abandoned her—all this the reader can
imagine, as well as the new life that dawned upon, and endowed
her with almost superhuman powers of exertion, when
she learned by chance that Helph still lived, true to her
memory.

As we introduced the reader to their happy home in the
opening of this story, we need not linger, save to say that the
quilting-quilt, still as good as new, adorned the nuptial bed;
and that Ellen Blake, good and generous and amiable as ever,
presided at the wedding, quite forgetful of her waning maidenhood
in the happiness of others.