University of Virginia Library

7. VII.
Kitty Leaves Home.

THE proposal of Mr. Bodgers in reference to our
friend Kitty had been naturally the subject
of very much and serious reflection. Mrs. Fleming,
it will be remembered, is a lone woman: Kitty
is her only child. Not only this, but the mother,
like most country ladies after the flower of their life
is gone by, had a secret dread of the city. It is a
natural dread, and is well founded.

If I had myself been consulted, I should, notwithstanding
the gratification of meeting with my pretty
country cousin, have shown considerable diffidence
of opinion. There is a bloom, I have observed,

indigenous to country-girls, which is almost certain
to wear off after a year's contact with the town.
This bloom, I am aware, is not much valued or
admired by city ladies generally; they cultivating,
in its stead, a certain savoir faire, as they term
it; which, being translated, means, very nearly—a
knowledge of all sorts of deviltry.

Mr. Bodgers is a well-meaning man, and his
regard for his young protégée would not have been
surprising, even in a married man; much less is it
surprising in a bachelor. I do not mean to hint
that he entertains anything more than a fatherly
feeling for Miss Kitty. On this point I am not
capable of judging. The tendencies of gentlemen
over fifty in this regard, are exceedingly difficult of
analysis. I have met with those of that age who
fancied themselves as provoking, in the eyes of
young ladies, of the tender passion, as they ever
were in their life. If this be true, they must, in
my opinion, have passed a very uninteresting and
unprofitable youth.

The spinsters of Newtown are divided in opinion
as to the attentions of Mr. Bodgers: the elder
portion insisting that his matrimonial inclinations
(if he have any) tend toward the mother; and the
younger portion insisting, with a good deal of sourness
in their looks, that the “old fool” is in love

with Miss Kitty herself. Such busy and uncomfortable
talkers are not uncommon to country-towns.

What Mrs. Fleming's views may have been, I
will not undertake to say; she was certainly most
grateful for the kindness of Mr. Bodgers; and, had
it not been for her widowed state, might possibly
have entertained the thought that he had serious
intentions with respect to her daughter.

I say it is possible; for I have observed that
mothers generally do not make the same nice distinction
between a man of fifty and a man of
twenty that girls are apt to do. Indeed, I flatter
myself that they are disposed to look with more
favor upon the man of the latter age, well established
in life, than upon youngsters of two or three-and-twenty.
It is seriously to be hoped that the
coming generation will be educated in the same
substantial and creditable opinions. In that event,
single men may look forward to a very brisk and
long-continued nomad state of bachelorship, which,
when fairly exhausted, will yield them a blooming
partner, with whom to idle down those flowery
walks of a virtuous old age, which end in a gout, a
crutch, and the grave-yard.

Kitty Fleming has not been nurtured in these
opinions. She has never counted the attentions of
Mr. Bodgers in any other light than as the kind

offices of an affectionate and whimsical old uncle.
Yet even Kitty herself has had misgivings in regard
to her acceptance of this last kind offer.

It is strange how early a sense of propriety
grows upon some minds, and how, by their very
nature, some souls will shrink from what, to the
common mind, seems only an honorable advantage.
Kitty, with those soft, yet keen blue eyes, has not
been blind to the tattle of the gossips of her little
village; and there is a shrinking from whatever will
incur and provoke their remark. And added to all
this, is the dread of leaving the places and the
friends she has always loved.

The city multitude knows little of that fond
attachment to place, which grows up under the
shadow of ancestral trees, and which spreads out
upon the meadows that have seen all the youthful
gambols and joys of the spring of life. Brickhouses
and First-of-May movings cannot foster the
feeling, which twines its heart-tendrils among the
mosses of old walls, and around ivy-covered trellises:
and there is nothing in a street-name, or in a number,
that so clings to the soul as the murmur of a
brook we love, and the shadow of a tree whose
leaves we have made preachers of holiness and of
joy!

And yet Kitty, woman-like, has her vague longing

for a sight and a sense of that great city which
is every day whirling its multitudes through the
mazes of gain and of pleasure. Alas, for cur
human weakness! Who is bold enough, and who
is pure enough, at whatever age he may be, not
to lust after the “pride of life?”

But against this craving, which belongs to our
little Kitty (to whom did it ever not belong?) come
up again the home attachments; not all confined to
that old mansion, which has so long borne up the
very respectable name of Bodgers. Indeed, those
attachments are very wide-spread.

I do not at all mean to say that little Kitty was
at this particular time the victim of any very tender
passion; I should be very sorry to think it. Nor
do I mean to say that she imagined herself such
victim; she would certainly never allow it. And
yet it is quite surprising how actual parting does
discover a great many little meandering off-shoots
of affection, whose extent, or presence even, we
had never before imagined. Nothing but positive
removal will expose the multiplied fibrous tendrils
by which a plant clings to its natal place; and
sadly enough, it often happens in the same way,
that our lesser affections never come fairly into
view, with their whole bigness, until they are
broken.

There never was a country-girl, I fancy, verging
on seventeen, with eyes one-half so bright as Kitty's,
or a complexion one-half so tell-tale, or with such
fine net-work of veins to braid their blue tissues on
the temple, without counting up divers, of what the
French call, affaires du cœur. And these matters
are recorded, for the most part, by withered nosegays,
silk-netted purses, embroidered slippers, and
moonlight walks. If there be any one devoid of
such experiences, she must be very much colder-blooded
than my little coz Kitty.

At least such is my opinion; an opinion corroborated,
I do not doubt, by Mr. Harry Flint, one
time student, and now attorney, of Newtown. The
name is, or was, familiar to Kitty. I have seen her
blush at the bare mention of it; which fact she will
strenuously deny.

The heart of seventeen is, however, a very uncertain,
capricious heart. Its loves are, for the most
part, sentimental impulses. It has no fair knowledge
of its own strength. So it was, that though
Kitty had sometime felt a little tremor at a touch
of Harry's hand, and had looked with rather
approving eyes upon a certain honest and ruddy
face which he was in the habit of wearing, and had
accepted his protection, on certain occasions, against
such lurking assassins as are apt to prowl about

village walks of an evening; and although, all
things considered, she preferred him to the majority
of people—out of her own family—she had never
fancied there was any special depth, or indeed
measurable capacity of any sort, about her feeling;
and was half frightened to find how big a space he
filled in the blank of separation.

As for Harry Flint, it would be wise for him to
keep by his law, and forget as soon as possible a
country-girl on the eve of a city life. She will be
very apt to forget him. I would advise him to put
the embroidered slippers, which he now cherishes
like two objects of vertu, to daily and secular use.
And as for the pressed flowers in his Bible (which
he is shy of lending), it would be well to transfer
them to his herbarium, if they possess botanical
value, and not to trust to any other value whatever.

A boy at twenty has no more right to be in love
than so young a girl as my little coz. Nothing
more than sentiment belongs to that age: between
which and affection there lies a vast difference.
There are plenty of people without the latter in
any bulk, who class them both together. Such
people are proper subjects of pity. Sentiment is
febrile and impulsive. Affection is continuous and
progressive. Hurt sentiment shocks prodigiously;
but hurt affection cuts like a sword-blade.

The sentiment that dwelt in Kitty bound her to
many things, and many people—Harry Flint among
the rest. Affection dwelt more at home: and it
glowed very deeply as she lingered there (I know
how it must have been) upon the bosom of her
dearest friend, struggling to say, what she could not
say with a firm lip—“Good-by, mother.”

I can imagine even my friend Mr. Bodgers in his
long surtout, putting his yellow silk handkerchief
once or twice to his eyes, under the foul pretence
of blowing his nose, and saying very briskly, “Pogh,
pogh!” Nay, he has tried to hum a short tune,
and walked to the window to observe the weather,
without, however, making any observation at all.
He has positively taken up a book from the parlor-table,
and seems for a moment interested in it, notwithstanding
he holds it upside down.

At a little lull, however, Mr. Bodgers gains
courage, and begs Kitty to “cheer up,” and be a
“brave girl,” and fumbles his cornelian watch-key
in a very impatient manner.

Still Kitty lingers, and the mother clasps her
tightly.

A six months' or a year's parting between
mother and daughter is surely no great affair:
and yet a lurking, vague presentiment of change,
accident, alienation, will sometimes make it full of

meaning. Besides, the mother was alone; Kitty
the only mortal to love; life was full of change.
And with Kitty, too, the great city she had hoped
to see, dwindles now; so small, so insignificant is
the world of Form, when measured by the world
of Affection! With this feeling rushing on her
suddenly, and with one of those swift soul-measurements
of time and life which the over-wrought
heart will sometimes call up, she forgets her little
scheme of pleasure, and she will stay in her own
home; she will not quit it—ever!

“Bless me,” says Mr. Bodgers, “Kitty, child—
Mrs. Fleming, dear me—Kit—pshaw—psh”—
Mr. Bodgers is taken with a slight turn of coughing,
which we would hardly have looked for in a
man of such perfect health.

It is curious how a mother's resolution will grow
with necessity; and just now it spread a calmness
over the mother's action that availed more than
all the “pshawing” and “bless mes” that Truman
Bodgers ever uttered.

And Mrs. Fleming spoke very firmly, all the
more firmly because so very gently.

“Kitty, my dear, you will go: I wish it. You
will enjoy it, Kitty; you will improve, I am sure.
Then you will write me, Kitty, very often; and
you will see your cousins, and will come and see

us again in the summer. Kiss me good-by,
Kitty.”

“Good-by, mother,” falteringly.

And Mr. Bodgers buttoned his long surtout,
and gathered up his umbrella; and with Kitty
clinging to his arm, and looking back, they left
her home together.

And there were village girls outside, to say,
“Good-by, Kitty;” and there were old servants
and poor women, who had felt her kindness, to
say, “God bless you, Kitty!” And there were
boys who took off their caps, with a kind of
cheerful mourning, to bow a farewell; and others,
older and less cheerful, to wave a hat sorrowfully,
and after that a handkerchief persistently, and
with a slow, saddened action, that must have
taught Kitty that a great many people loved her.

And the trees braided fantastic shadows along
the old village walks, where recollection went
walking yet. And the hills stooped kindly to
the blue sky, in silent, sad greeting; and the
belting woods far away, east and west, trailed
autumn wreaths of gay colors along either side
the road, by which Kitty went away from her
village home.

It may be that Mr. Bodgers thought regretfully
of what joys had been cast from him, and lost for

ever, as he watched the sad, earnest face of his
little protégée, lingering yet with her eye upon
the vanishing town. It may be that the hope
of some warmer feeling overtook him, as he felt
her impassioned grasp of his arm, as she clung to
him, while her thought wandered before her into
the strange scenes they were approaching.

As for Harry Flint, working at his tasks, it
would be hard to say what thoughts came over him
when he knew that she who had lighted up a good
many fairy dreams of his was gone, where a
thousand objects would arrest her regard; and
where the modest country-girl would become such
mistress of the forms and fashions of the city, as
would blunt all the force of his homely and honest
affection.

It would be very absurd in him to think any
farther of the city belle; of course it would. He
will doubtless forget her in six months; of course
he will.

Mr. Bodgers (Harry Flint would give all his
patrimony to be in his place), sitting very trimly
in his long surtout beside Kitty, meditates pleasantly
upon the prospect of that admiration which
he knows must belong to his little protégée.
There never was an old country-gentleman, with
a pretty kinswoman, who did not feel perfectly

satisfied that such kinswoman would be excessively
admired in the city, and become, as it were by
necessity, one of the reigning divinities. Such
old gentlemen are, it is true, frequently mistaken;
New-York being a large place, and there being
an incredible number of well-looking women distributed
over it, of almost every age and condition.

As for Kitty, her thoughts ranged very widely;
sometimes floating over the new scenes and new
companions, and again jumping back, by a kind
of electric action, to the old and cherished friends
she had left behind. In evidence of the last,
Kitty did now and then, notwithstanding the
homely encouragement of Mr. Bodgers, drop a
low sigh.

“None of that; pray don't, Kitty. They'll
treat you well. They are pleasant old girls.”

This sounded to Kitty disrespectful.

“They'll give you a storm of kisses; they don't
often have a chance of that kind.”

Mr. Bodgers chuckled slightly at his own
shrewdness.

“And, Kitty” (Mr. Bodgers spoke in a fatherly
manner), “be careful of your heart.”

Kitty looked archly at him.

“Plenty of butterflies will be flitting about you.
Take care of them; they've no brains.”

Kitty looked disappointed.

“They carry all they're worth upon their backs.”

Kitty looked surprised.

“And, by the by, Kitty, where's your little
purse?”

“Full, sir; ten dollars in it at least,” very
promptly.

Mr. Bodgers smiled; but whether at Kitty's
naïveté, or at thought of doing a good deed, I do
not know.

“Hand it to me, Kitty.”

And Kitty drew out a very thin porte-monnaie,
with certain letters scratched upon it, which she
kept out of sight.

Mr. Bodgers thrust in a small roll of bills.

“Uncle Truman!” said Kitty, but in such an
eager, kind way as tempted him to search in his
pocket for another roll.

“Be prudent, Kitty; and let me know when it's
gone.”

Kitty hesitated, with her eyes glistening in a
most bewitching way.

“No nonsense, Kitty; I am an old fellow, you
know. I've no use for money—no wife, you
know;” and there was a dash of tender regret in
this.

Kitty took the purse, and laying it down in her

lap, placed her little hand in the stout hand of
Mr. Bodgers.

“You are so good to me, Uncle Truman!”

“Nonsense, Kitty!” and Mr. Bodgers coughed
again, very much as he had coughed in the little
parlor of Newtown.

The wind was fresh, and perhaps he had taken
cold.