University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE MORNING AFTER.

Colonel Sprowle's family arose late the next
morning. The fatigues and excitements of the
evening and the preparation for it were followed
by a natural collapse, of which somnolence was
a leading symptom. The sun shone into the
window at a pretty well opened angle when the
Colonel first found himself sufficiently awake to
address his yet slumbering spouse.

“Sally!” said the Colonel, in a voice that was
a little husky, — for he had finished off the evening
with an extra glass or two of “Madary,” and
had a somewhat rusty and headachy sense of renewed
existence, on greeting the rather advanced
dawn, — “Sally!”

“Take care o' them custard-cups! There they
go!”

Poor Mrs. Sprowle was fighting the party over
in her dream; and as the visionary custard-cups
crashed down through one lobe of her brain into
another, she gave a start as if an inch of lightning
from a quart Leyden jar had jumped into one of
her knuckles with its sudden and lively poonk!

“Sally!” said the Colonel, — “wake up, wake
up! What 'r' y' dreamin' abaout?”

Mrs. Sprowle raised herself, by a sort of spasm,
sur son séant, as they say in France, — up on end,
as we have it in New England. She looked first
to the left, then to the right, then straight before
her, apparently without seeing anything, and at
last slowly settled down, with her two eyes, blank
of any particular meaning, directed upon the
Colonel.

“What time is't?” she said.

“Ten o'clock. What 'y' been dreamin' abaout?
Y' giv a jump like a hoppergrass. Wake up,
wake up! Th' party's over, and y' been asleep
all the mornin'. The party's over, I tell ye!
Wake up!”

“Over!” said Mrs. Sprowle, who began to define
her position at last, — “over! I should think
'twas time 'twas over! It's lasted a hundud year.
I've been workin' for that party longer 'n Methuselah's
lifetime, sence I been asleep. The pies
wouldn' bake, and the blo'monge wouldn' set, and
the ice-cream wouldn' freeze, and all the folks kep'
comin' 'n' comin' 'n' comin', — everybody I ever
knew in all my life, — some of 'em 's been dead
this twenty year 'n' more, — 'n' nothin' for 'em to
eat nor drink. The fire wouldn' burn to cook
anything, all we could do. We blowed with the
belluses, 'n' we stuffed in paper 'n' pitch-pine kindlin's,
but nothin' could make that fire burn; 'n'
all the time the folks kep' comin', as if they'd

never stop, — 'n' nothin' for 'em but empty dishes,
'n' all the borrowed chaney slippin' round on the
waiters 'n' chippin' 'n' crackin', — I wouldn' go
through what I been through t'-night for all th'
money in th' Bank, — I do believe it's harder t'
have a party than t' ” —

Mrs. Sprowle stated the case strongly.

The Colonel said he didn't know how that
might be. She was a better judge than he was.
It was bother enough, anyhow, and he was glad
that it was over. After this, the worthy pair commenced
preparations for rejoining the waking
world, and in due time proceeded down-stairs.

Everybody was late that morning, and nothing
had got put to rights. The house looked as if a
small army had been quartered in it over night.
The tables were of course in huge disorder, after
the protracted assault they had undergone. There
had been a great battle evidently, and it had gone
against the provisions. Some points had been
stormed, and all their defences annihilated, but
here and there were centres of resistance which
had held out against all attacks, — large rounds
of beef, and solid loaves of cake, against which
the inexperienced had wasted their energies in
the enthusiasm of youth or uninformed maturity,
while the longer-headed guests were making discoveries
of “shell-oysters” and “pătridges” and
similar delicacies.

The breakfast was naturally of a somewhat
fragmentary character. A chicken that had lost

his legs in the service of the preceding campaign
was once more put on duty. A great ham stuck
with cloves, as Saint Sebastian was with arrows,
was again offered for martyrdom. It would have
been a pleasant sight for a medical man of a
speculative turn to have seen the prospect before
the Colonel's family of the next week's breakfasts,
dinners, and suppers. The trail that one of these
great rural parties leaves after it is one of its most
formidable considerations. Every door-handle in
the house is suggestive of sweetmeats for the
next week, at least. The most unnatural articles
of diet displace the frugal but nutritious food of
unconvulsed periods of existence. If there is a
walking infant about the house, it will certainly
have a more or less fatal fit from overmuch of
some indigestible delicacy. Before the week is
out, everybody will be tired to death of sugary
forms of nourishment and long to see the last of
the remnants of the festival.

The family had not yet arrived at this condition.
On the contrary, the first inspection of the
tables suggested the prospect of days of unstinted
luxury; and the younger portion of the household,
especially, were in a state of great excitement
as the account of stock was taken with
reference to future internal investments. Some
curious facts came to light during these researches.

“Where's all the oranges gone to?” said Mrs.
Sprowle. “I expected there'd be ever so many

of 'em left. I didn't see many of the folks eatin'
oranges. Where's the skins of 'em? There
ought to be six dozen orange-skins round on the
plates, and there a'n't one dozen. And all the
small cakes, too, and all the sugar things that was
stuck on the big cakes. Has anybody counted
the spoons? Some of 'em got swallered, perhaps.
I hope they was plated ones, if they did!”

The failure of the morning's orange-crop and
the deficit in other expected residual delicacies
were not very difficult to account for. In many
of the two-story Rockland families, and in those
favored households of the neighboring villages
whose members had been invited to the great
party, there was a very general excitement among
the younger people on the morning after the great
event. “Did y' bring home somethin' from the
party? What is it? What is it? Is it frûtcake?
Is it nuts and oranges and apples? Give
me some! Give me some!” Such a concert of
treble voices uttering accents like these had not
been heard since the great Temperance Festival
with the celebrated “cōlation” in the open air
under the trees of the Parnassian Grove, — as the
place was christened by the young ladies of the
Institute. The cry of the children was not in
vain. From the pockets of demure fathers, from
the bags of sharp-eyed spinsters, from the folded
handkerchiefs of light-fingered sisters, from the
tall hats of sly-winking brothers, there was a
resurrection of the missing oranges and cakes and

sugar-things in many a rejoicing family-circle,
enough to astonish the most hardened “caterer”
that ever contracted to feed a thousand people
under canvas.

The tender recollection of those dear little ones
whom extreme youth or other pressing considerations
detain from scenes of festivity — a trait of
affection by no means uncommon among our
thoughtful people — dignifies those social meetings
where it is manifested, and sheds a ray of
sunshine on our common nature. It is “an oasis
in the desert,” — to use the striking expression of
the last year's “Valedictorian” of the Apollinean
Institute. In the midst of so much that is purely
selfish, it is delightful to meet such disinterested
care for others. When a large family of children
are expecting a parent's return from an entertainment,
it will often require great exertions on his
part to freight himself so as to meet their reasonable
expectations. A few rules are worth remembering
by all who attend anniversary dinners in
Faneuil Hall or elsewhere. Thus: Lobsters'
claws are always acceptable to children of all
ages. Oranges and apples are to be taken one
at a time, until the coat-pockets begin to become
inconveniently heavy. Cakes are injured by sitting
upon them; it is, therefore, well to carry a
stout tin box of a size to hold as many pieces as
there are children in the domestic circle. A very
pleasant amusement, at the close of one of these
banquets, is grabbing for the flowers with which

the table is embellished. These will please the
ladies at home very greatly, and, if the children
are at the same time abundantly supplied with
fruits, nuts, cakes, and any little ornamental articles
of confectionery which are of a nature to be
unostentatiously removed, the kind-hearted parent
will make a whole household happy, without
any additional expense beyond the outlay for his
ticket.

There were fragmentary delicacies enough left,
of one kind and another, at any rate, to make all
the Colonel's family uncomfortable for the next
week. It bid fair to take as long to get rid of the
remains of the great party as it had taken to make
ready for it.

In the mean time Mr. Bernard had been dreaming,
as young men dream, of gliding shapes with
bright eyes and burning cheeks, strangely blended
with red planets and hissing meteors, and, shining
over all, the white, unwandering star of the North,
girt with its tethered constellations.

After breakfast he walked into the parlor, where
he found Miss Darley. She was alone, and, holding
a school-book in her hand, was at work with
one of the morning's lessons. She hardly noticed
him as he entered, being very busy with her book,
— and he paused a moment before speaking, and
looked at her with a kind of reverence. It would
not have been strictly true to call her beautiful.
For years, — since her earliest womanhood, —
those slender hands had taken the bread which

repaid the toil of heart and brain from the coarse
palms which offered it in the world's rude market.
It was not for herself alone that she had bartered
away the life of her youth, that she had breathed
the hot air of school-rooms, that she had forced
her intelligence to posture before her will, as the
exigencies of her place required, — waking to
mental labor, — sleeping to dream of problems, —
rolling up the stone of education for an endless
twelvemonth's term, to find it at the bottom of
the hill again when another year called her to its
renewed duties, — schooling her temper in unending
inward and outward conflicts, until neither
dulness nor obstinacy nor ingratitude nor insolence
could reach her serene self-possession. Not
for herself alone. Poorly as her prodigal labors
were repaid in proportion to the waste of life
they cost, her value was too well established to
leave her without what, under other circumstances,
would have been a more than sufficient compensation.
But there were others who looked to her in
their need, and so the modest fountain which
might have been filled to its brim was continually
drained through silent-flowing, hidden sluices.

Out of such a life, inherited from a race which
had lived in conditions not unlike her own, beauty,
in the common sense of the term, could hardly
find leisure to develop and shape itself. For it
must be remembered, that symmetry and elegance
of features and figure, like perfectly formed crystals
in the mineral world, are reached only by insuring

a certain necessary repose to individuals
and to generations. Human beauty is an agricultural
product in the country, growing up in
men and women as in corn and cattle, where the
soil is good. It is a luxury almost monopolized
by the rich in cities, bred under glass like their
forced pine-apples and peaches. Both in city and
country, the evolution of the physical harmonies
which make music to our eyes requires a combination
of favorable circumstances, of which alternations
of unburdened tranquillity with intervals
of varied excitement of mind and body are among
the most important. Where sufficient excitement
is wanting, as often happens in the country, the
features, however rich in red and white, get heavy,
and the movements sluggish; where excitement
is furnished in excess, as is frequently the case in
cities, the contours and colors are impoverished,
and the nerves begin to make their existence
known to the consciousness, as the face very soon
informs us.

Helen Darley could not, in the nature of things,
have possessed the kind of beauty which pleases
the common taste. Her eye was calm, sad-looking,
her features very still, except when her pleasant
smile changed them for a moment, all her
outlines were delicate, her voice was very gentle,
but somewhat subdued by years of thoughtful
labor, and on her smooth forehead one little
hinted line whispered already that Care was beginning
to mark the trace which Time sooner or

later would make a furrow. She could not be a
beauty; if she had been, it would have been
much harder for many persons to be interested in
her. For, although in the abstract we all love
beauty, and although, if we were sent naked
souls into some ultramundane warehouse of soulless
bodies and told to select one to our liking, we
should each choose a handsome one, and never
think of the consequences, — it is quite certain
that beauty carries an atmosphere of repulsion as
well as of attraction with it, alike in both sexes.
We may be well assured that there are many persons
who no more think of specializing their love
of the other sex upon one endowed with signal
beauty, than they think of wanting great diamonds
or thousand-dollar horses. No man or
woman can appropriate beauty without paying
for it, — in endowments, in fortune, in position,
in self-surrender, or other valuable stock; and
there are a great many who are too poor, too
ordinary, too humble, too busy, too proud, to pay
any of these prices for it. So the unbeautiful
get many more lovers than the beauties; only, as
there are more of them, their lovers are spread
thinner and do not make so much show.

The young master stood looking at Helen Darley
with a kind of tender admiration. She was
such a picture of the martyr by the slow social
combustive process, that it almost seemed to him
he could see a pale lambent nimbus round her
head.

“I did not see you at the great party last evening,”
he said, presently.

She looked up and answered, “No. I have
not much taste for such large companies. Besides,
I do not feel as if my time belonged to me
after it has been paid for. There is always something
to do, some lesson or exercise, — and it so
happened, I was very busy last night with the
new problems in geometry. I hope you had a
good time.”

“Very. Two or three of our girls were there.
Rosa Milburn. What a beauty she is! I wonder
what she feeds on! Wine and musk and
chloroform and coals of fire, I believe; I didn't
think there was such color and flavor in a woman
outside the tropics.”

Miss Darley smiled rather faintly; the imagery
was not just to her taste: femineity often finds it
very hard to accept the fact of muliebrity.

“Was” —?

She stopped short; but her question had asked
itself.

“Elsie there? She was, for an hour or so.
She looked frightfully handsome. I meant to
have spoken to her, but she slipped away before I
knew it.”

“I thought she meant to go to the party,” said
Miss Darley. “Did she look at you?”

“She did. Why?”

“And you did not speak to her?”

“No. I should have spoken to her, but she

was gone when I looked for her. A strange creature!
Isn't there an odd sort of fascination about
her? You have not explained all the mystery
about the girl. What does she come to this
school for? She seems to do pretty much as she
likes about studying.”

Miss Darley answered in very low tones. “It
was a fancy of hers to come, and they let her
have her way. I don't know what there is about
her, except that she seems to take my life out of
me when she looks at me. I don't like to ask
other people about our girls. She says very little
to anybody, and studies, or makes believe to study,
almost what she likes. I don't know what she
is,” (Miss Darley laid her hand, trembling, on the
young master's sleeve,) “but I can tell when she
is in the room without seeing or hearing her. Oh,
Mr. Langdon, I am weak and nervous, and no
doubt foolish, — but — if there were women now,
as in the days of our Saviour, possessed of devils,
I should think there was something not human
looking out of Elsie Venner's eyes!”

The poor girl's breast rose and fell tumultuously
as she spoke, and her voice labored, as if some
obstruction were rising in her throat.

A scene might possibly have come of it, but the
door opened. Mr. Silas Peckham. Miss Darley
got away as soon as she well could.

“Why did not Miss Darley go to the party last
evening?” said Mr. Bernard.

“Well, the fact is,” answered Mr. Silas Peckham,

“Miss Darley, she 's pooty much took up
with the school. She's an industris young woman,
— yis, she is industris, — but perhaps she a'n't
quite so spry a worker as some. Maybe, considerin'
she's paid for her time, she isn't fur out o'
the way in occoopyin' herself evenin's, — that is,
if so be she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her
work in the daytime. Edoocation is the great business
of the Institoot. Amoosements are objec's
of a secondary natur', accordin' to my v'oo.”
[The unspellable pronunciation of this word is
the touchstone of New England Brahminism.]

Mr. Bernard drew a deep breath, his thin nostrils
dilating, as if the air did not rush in fast
enough to cool his blood, while Silas Peckham
was speaking. The Head of the Apollinean Institute
delivered himself of these judicious sentiments
in that peculiar acid, penetrating tone,
thickened with a nasal twang, which not rarely
becomes hereditary after three or four generations
raised upon east winds, salt fish, and large, white-bellied,
pickled cucumbers. He spoke deliberately,
as if weighing his words well, so that, during
his few remarks, Mr. Bernard had time for a mental
accompaniment with variations, accented by
certain bodily changes, which escaped Mr. Peckham's
observation. First there was a feeling of
disgust and shame at hearing Helen Darley
spoken of like a dumb working animal. That
sent the blood up into his cheeks. Then the slur
upon her probable want of force — her incapacity,

who made the character of the school and left
this man to pocket its profits — sent a thrill of
the old Wentworth fire through him, so that his
muscles hardened, his hands closed, and he took
the measure of Mr. Silas Peckham, to see if his
head would strike the wall in case he went over
backwards all of a sudden. This would not do,
of course, and so the thrill passed off and the
muscles softened again. Then came that state
of tenderness in the heart, overlying wrath in the
stomach, in which the eyes grow moist like a
woman's, and there is also a great boiling-up of
objectionable terms out of the deep-water vocabulary,
so that Prudence and Propriety and all the
other pious Ps have to jump upon the lid of
speech to keep them from boiling over into fierce
articulation. All this was internal, chiefly, and
of course not recognized by Mr. Silas Peckham.
The idea, that any full-grown, sensible man
should have any other notion than that of getting
the most work for the least money out of his assistants,
had never suggested itself to him.

Mr. Bernard had gone through this paroxysm,
and cooled down, in the period while Mr. Peckham
was uttering these words in his thin, shallow
whine, twanging up into the frontal sinuses.
What was the use of losing his temper and
throwing away his place, and so, among the consequences
which would necessarily follow, leaving
the poor lady-teacher without a friend to
stand by her ready to lay his hand on the grand-inquisitor

before the windlass of his rack had
taken one turn too many?

“No doubt, Mr. Peckham,” he said, in a grave,
calm voice, “there is a great deal of work to be
done in the school; but perhaps we can distribute
the duties a little more evenly after a time.
I shall look over the girls' themes myself, after
this week. Perhaps there will be some other
parts of her labor that I can take on myself.
We can arrange a new programme of studies
and recitations.”

“We can do that,” said Mr. Silas Peckham.
“But I don't propose mater'lly alterin' Miss Darley's
dooties. I don't think she works to hurt
herself. Some of the Trustees have proposed
interdoosin' new branches of study, and I expect
you will be pooty much occoopied with the dooties
that belong to your place. On the Sahbath
you will be able to attend divine service three
times, which is expected of our teachers. I shall
continoo myself to give Sahbath Scriptur'-read-in's
to the young ladies. That is a solemn dooty
I can't make up my mind to commit to other
people. My teachers enjoy the Lord's day as a
day of rest. In it they do no manner of work, —
except in cases of necessity or mercy, such as
fillin' out diplomas, or when we git crowded jest
at the end of a term, or when there is an extry
number of p'oopils, or other Providential call to
dispense with the ordinance.”

Mr. Bernard had a fine glow in his cheeks by

this time, — doubtless kindled by the thought of
the kind consideration Mr. Peckham showed for
his subordinates in allowing them the between-meeting-time
on Sundays except for some special
reason. But the morning was wearing away;
so he went to the school-room, taking leave very
properly of his respected principal, who soon took
his hat and departed.

Mr. Peckham visited certain “stores” or shops,
where he made inquiries after various articles in
the provision-line, and effected a purchase or two.
Two or three barrels of potatoes, which had
sprouted in a promising way, he secured at a
bargain. A side of feminine beef was also obtained
at a low figure. He was entirely satisfied
with a couple of barrels of flour, which, being invoiced
“slightly damaged,” were to be had at a
reasonable price.

After this, Silas Peckham felt in good spirits.
He had done a pretty stroke of business. It
came into his head whether he might not follow
it up with a still more brilliant speculation. So
he turned his steps in the direction of Colonel
Sprowle's.

It was now eleven o'clock, and the battle-field
of last evening was as we left it. Mr. Peckham's
visit was unexpected, perhaps not very well timed,
but the Colonel received him civilly.

“Beautifully lighted, — these rooms last night!”
said Mr. Peckham. “Winter-strained?”

The Colonel nodded.

“How much do you pay for your winter-strained?”

The Colonel told him the price.

“Very hahnsome supper, — very hahnsome!
Nothin' ever seen like it in Rockland. Must
have been a great heap of things left over.”

The compliment was not ungrateful, and the
Colonel acknowledged it by smiling and saying,
“I should think the' was a trifle! Come and
look.”

When Silas Peckham saw how many delicacies
had survived the evening's conflict, his commercial
spirit rose at once to the point of a
proposal.

“Colonel Sprowle,” said he, “there's meat and
cakes and pies and pickles enough on that table
to spread a hahnsome cōlation. If you'd like to
trade reasonable, I think perhaps I should be
willin' to take 'em off your hands. There's been
a talk about our havin' a celebration in the Parnassian
Grove, and I think I could work in what
your folks don't want and make myself whole by
chargin' a small sum for tickets. Broken meats,
of course, a'n't of the same valoo as fresh provisions;
so I think you might be willin' to trade
reasonable.”

Mr. Peckham paused and rested on his proposal.
It would not, perhaps, have been very extraordinary,
if Colonel Sprowle had entertained
the proposition. There is no telling beforehand
how such things will strike people. It didn't

happen to strike the Colonel favorably. He had
a little red-blooded manhood in him.

“Sell you them things to make a cōlation out
of?” the Colonel replied. “Walk up to that
table, Mr. Peckham, and help yourself! Fill
your pockets, Mr. Peckham! Fetch a basket,
and our hired folks shall fill it full for ye! Send a
cart, if y' like, 'n' carry off them leavin's to make
a celebration for your pupils with! Only let me
tell ye this: — as sure's my name's Hezekiah
Spraowle, you'll be known through the taown
'n' through the caounty, from that day forrard, as
the Principal of the Broken-Victuals Institoot!”

Even provincial human-nature sometimes has
a touch of sublimity about it. Mr. Silas Peckham
had gone a little deeper than he meant, and
come upon the “hard pan,” as the well-diggers
call it, of the Colonel's character, before he thought
of it. A militia-colonel standing on his sentiments
is not to be despised. That was shown
pretty well in New England two or three generations
ago. There were a good many plain officers
that talked about their “rigiment” and their
“caounty” who knew very well how to say
“Make ready!” “Take aim!” “Fire!” — in
the face of a line of grenadiers with bullets in
their guns and bayonets on them. And though
a rustic uniform is not always unexceptionable
in its cut and trimmings, yet there was many an
ill-made coat in those old times that was good
enough to be shown to the enemy's front rank,

too often to be left on the field with a round hole
in its left lapel that matched another going right
through the brave heart of the plain country captain
or major or colonel who was buried in it
under the crimson turf.

Mr. Silas Peckham said little or nothing. His
sensibilities were not acute, but he perceived that
he had made a miscalculation. He hoped that
there was no offence, — thought it might have
been mutooally agreeable, conclooded he would
give up the idee of a cōlation, and backed himself
out as if unwilling to expose the less guarded
aspect of his person to the risk of accelerating
impulses.

The Colonel shut the door, — cast his eye on
the toe of his right boot, as if it had had a strong
temptation, — looked at his watch, then round
the room, and, going to a cupboard, swallowed a
glass of deep-red brandy and water to compose
his feelings.