 | The two altars, or, Two pictures in one |  |
I. — THE ALTAR OF LIBERTY, OR 1776.
The well-sweep of the old house on the hill was relieved, dark
and clear, against the reddening sky, as the early winter sun was
going down in the west. It was a brisk, clear, metallic evening;
the long drifts of snow blushed crimson red on their tops, and lay
in shades of purple and lilac in the hollows; and the old wintry
wind brushed shrewdly along the plain, tingling people's noses,
blowing open their cloaks, puffing in the back of their necks, and
showing other unmistakable indications that he was getting up steam
for a real roystering night.
“Hurra! how it blows!” said little Dick Ward, from the top
of the mossy wood-pile.
Now Dick had been sent to said wood-pile, in company with his little
sister Grace, to pick up chips, which, everybody knows, was in the
olden time considered a wholesome and gracious employment, and
the peculiar duty of the rising generation. But said Dick, being
a boy, had mounted the wood-pile, and erected there a flag-staff, on
which he was busily tying a little red pocket-handkerchief, occasionally
exhorting Gracie “to be sure and pick up fast.” “O, yes, I
will,” said Grace; “but you see the chips have got ice on 'em, and
make my hands so cold!”
“O! don't stop to suck your thumbs! — who cares for ice?
Pick away, I say, while I set up the flag of Liberty.”
So Gracie picked away as fast as she could, nothing doubting
but that her cold thumbs were in some mysterious sense an offering
on the shrine of Liberty; while soon the red handkerchief, duly
secured, fluttered and snapped in the brisk evening wind.
“Now you must hurra, Gracie, and throw up your bonnet,”
said Dicky, as he descended from the pile.
“But won't it lodge down in some place in the wood-pile?” suggested
Gracie, thoughtfully.
“O, never fear; give it to me, and just holler now, Gracie,
`Hurra for Liberty;' and we 'll throw up your bonnet and my cap;
and we 'll play, you know, that we were a whole army, and I 'm
General Washington.”
So Gracie gave up her little red hood, and Dick swung his cap,
and up they both went into the air; and the children shouted, and
the flag snapped and fluttered, and altogether they had a merry
time of it. But then the wind — good-for-nothing, roguish fellow! —
made an ungenerous plunge at poor Gracie's little hood, and snipped
it up in a twinkling, and whisked it off, off, off, — fluttering and
bobbing up and down, quite across a wide, waste, snowy field, and
finally lodged it on the top of a tall, strutting rail, that was leaning
very independently, quite another way from all the other rails of
the fence.
“Now see, do see!” said Gracie; “there goes my bonnet! What
will Aunt Hitty say?” and Gracie began to cry.
“Don't you cry, Gracie; you offered it up to Liberty, you know
—it 's glorious to give up everything for Liberty.”
“O! but Aunt Hitty won't think so.”
“Well, don't cry, Gracie, you foolish girl! Do you think I
can't get it? Now, only play that that great rail was a fort, and
your bonnet was a prisoner in it, and see how quick I 'll take the
fort, and get it!” and Dick shouldered a stick, and started off.
“What upon 'arth keeps those children so long? I should think
they were making chips!” said Aunt Mehetabel; “the fire 's just
a-going out under the tea-kettle.”
By this time Gracie had lugged her heavy basket to the door,
and was stamping the snow off her little feet, which were so numb
that she needed to stamp, to be quite sure they were yet there.
Aunt Mehetabel's shrewd face was the first that greeted her, as the
door opened.
“Gracie — what upon airth! — wipe your nose, child; your
hands are frozen. Where alive is Dick, and what 's kept you out
all this time, — and where 's your bonnet?”
Poor Gracie, stunned by this cataract of questions, neither wiped
her nose nor gave any answer; but sidled up into the warm corner,
where grandmamma was knitting, and began quietly rubbing and
blowing her fingers, while the tears silently rolled down her cheeks,
as the fire made their former ache intolerable.
“Poor little dear!” said grandmamma, taking her hands in hers;
“Hitty shan't scold you. Grandma knows you 've been a good
girl, — the wind blew poor Gracie's bonnet away;” and grandmamma
wiped both eyes and nose, and gave her, moreover, a stalk
of dried fennel out of her pocket, whereat Gracie took heart once
more.
“Mother always makes fools of Roxy's children,” said Mehetabel,
puffing zealously under the tea-kettle. “There 's a little maple
sugar in that saucer up there, mother, if you will keep giving it to
her,” she said, still vigorously puffing. “And now, Gracie,” she
said, when, after a while, the fire seemed in tolerable order, “will
you answer my question? — Where is Dick?”
“Gone over in the lot, to get my bonnet.”
“How came your bonnet off?” said Aunt Mehetabel. “I tied
it on firm enough.”
“Dick wanted me to take it off for him, to throw up for Liberty,'
said Grace.
“Throw up for fiddlestick! just one of Dick's cut-ups, and you
was silly enough to mind him!”
“Why, he put up a flag-staff on the wood-pile, and a flag to Liberty,
you know, that papa 's fighting for,” said Grace, more confidently,
as she saw her quiet, blue-eyed mother, who had silently
walked into the room during the conversation.
“Grace's mother smiled, and said, encouragingly, “And what
then?”
“Why, he wanted me to throw up my bonnet and he his cap, and
shout for Liberty; and then the wind took it and carried it off, and
he said I ought not to be sorry if I did lose it, — it was an offering
to Liberty.”
“And so I did,” said Dick, who was standing as straight as a
poplar behind the group; “and I heard it in one of father's letters
to mother, that we ought to offer up everything on the altar of Liberty!
And so I made an altar of the wood-pile.”
“Good boy!” said his mother, “always remember everything
your father writes. He has offered up everything on the altar of
Liberty, true enough; and I hope you, son, will live to do the same.”
“Only, if I have the hoods and caps to make,” said Aunt Hitty,
“I hope he won't offer them up every week — that 's all!”
“O! well, Aunt Hitty, I 've got the hood, — let me alone for
that. It blew clear over into the Daddy Ward pasture-lot, and
there stuck on the top of the great rail; and I played that the rail
was a fort, and besieged it, and took it.”
“O! yes, you 're always up to taking forts, and anything else
that nobody wants done. I 'll warrant, now, you left Gracie to
pick up every blessed one of them chips!”
“Picking up chips is girls' work,” said Dick; “and taking forts
and defending the country is men's work.”
“And pray, Mister Pomp, how long have you been a man?”
said Aunt Hitty.
“If I a'nt a man, I soon shall be; my head is 'most up to
mother's shoulder, and I can fire off a gun, too. I tried, the other
day, when I was up to the store. Mother, I wish you 'd let me
clean and load the old gun; so that, if the British should come!”
“Well, if you are so big and grand, just lift me out that table,
sir,” said Aunt Hitty, “for it 's past supper-time.”
Dick sprung, and had the table out in a trice, with an abundant
clatter, and put up the leaves with quite an air. His mother, with
the silent and gliding motion characteristic of her, quietly took out
the table-cloth and spread it, and began to set the cups and saucers
in order, and to put on the plates and knives, while Aunt Hitty bustled
about the tea.
“I 'll be glad when the war 's over, for one reason,” said she.
“I 'm pretty much tired of drinking sage-tea, for one, I know.”
“Well, Aunt Hitty, how you scolded that pedler, last week, that
brought along that real tea.”
“To be sure I did. S'pose I 'd be taking any of his old tea,
bought of the British? — fling every tea-cup in his face, first!”
“Well, mother,” said Dick, “I never exactly understood what it
was about the tea, and why the Boston folks threw it all overboard.”
“Because there was an unlawful tax laid upon it, that the government
had no right to lay. It was n't much in itself; but it was
a part of a whole system of oppressive meanness, designed to take
away our rights, and make us slaves of a foreign power!”
“Slaves!” said Dicky, straightening himself proudly. “Father
a slave!”
“But they would not be slaves! They saw clearly where it would
all end, and they would not begin to submit to it in ever so little,”
said the mother.
“I would n't, if I was they,” said Dicky.
“Besides,” said his mother, drawing him towards her, “it
was n't for themselves alone they did it. This is a great country, and
it will be greater and greater: and it 's very important that it
should have free and equal laws, because it will by and by be so
great. This country, if it is a free one, will be a light of the
oppressed and distressed from other countries shall come here to
enjoy equal rights and freedom. This, dear boy, is why your father
and uncles have gone to fight, and why they do stay and fight,
though God knows what they suffer, and —” and the large blue
eyes of the mother were full of tears; yet a strong, bright beam of
pride and exultation shone through those tears.
“Well, well, Roxy, you can always talk, everybody knows,” said
Aunt Hitty, who had been not the least attentive listener of this
little patriotic harangue; “but, you see, the tea is getting cold, and
yonder I see the sleigh is at the door, and John 's come, — so let 's
set up our chairs for supper.”
The chairs were soon set up, when John, the eldest son, a lad of
about fifteen, entered with a letter. There was one general
exclamation, and stretching out of hands towards it. John threw it
into his mother's lap; — the tea-table was forgotten, and the tea-kettle
sang unnoticed by the fire, as all hands piled themselves up
by mother's chair to hear the news. It was from Captain Ward,
then in the American army, at Valley Forge. Mrs. Ward ran it
over hastily, and then read it aloud. A few words we may extract:
“There is still,” it said, “much suffering. I have given away every
pair of stockings you sent me, reserving to myself only one; for I
will not be one whit better off than the poorest soldier that fights for
his country. Poor fellows! it makes my heart ache sometimes to
go round among them, and see them with their worn clothes and
torn shoes, and often bleeding feet, yet cheerful and hopeful, and
every one willing to do his very best. Often the spirit of discouragement
comes over them, particularly at night, when, weary, cold
and hungry, they turn into their comfortless huts, on the snowy
ground. Then sometimes there is a thought of home, and warm
fires, and some speak of giving up; but next morning out comes
Washington's general orders, — little short note, but it 's wonderful
the good it does! and then they all resolve to hold on, come
what may. There are commissioners going all through the country
to pick up supplies. If they come to you, I need not tell you what
to do. I know all that will be in your hearts.”
“There, children, you see what your father suffers,” said the
mother, “and what it costs these poor soldiers to gain our liberty.”
“Ephraim Scranton told me that the commissioners had come as
far as the Three-mile Tavern, and that he rather 'spected they 'd be
beans to the silent company at the tea-table.
“To-night? — Do tell, now!” said Aunt Hitty. “Then it 's time
we were awake and stirring. Let 's see what can be got.”
“I 'll send my new over-coat, for one,” said John. “That old
one an't cut up yet, is it, Aunt Hitty?”
“No,” said Aunt Hitty; “I was laying out to cut it over, next
Wednesday, when Desire Smith could be here to do the tailoring.”
“There 's the south room,” said Aunt Hitty, musing; “that bed
has the two old Aunt Ward blankets on it, and the great blue quilt,
and two comforters. Then mother's and my room, two pair — four
comforters — two quilts — the best chamber has got —”
“O! Aunt Hitty, send all that 's in the best chamber. If any
company comes, we can make it up off from our beds!” said John.
“I can send a blanket or two off from my bed, I know; — can't
but just turn over in it, so many clothes on, now.”
“Aunt Hitty, take a blanket off from our bed,” said Grace and
Dicky, at once.
“Well, well, we 'll see,” said Aunt Hitty, bustling up.
Up rose grandmamma, with great earnestness, now, and going into
the next room, and opening a large cedar wood-chest, returned,
bearing in her arms two large snow-white blankets, which she
deposited flat on the table, just as Aunt Hitty was whisking off the
table-cloth.
“Mortal! mother, what are you going to do?” said Aunt Hitty.
“There,” she said, “I spun those, every thread of 'em, when my
name was Mary Evans. Those were my wedding blankets, made
of real nice wool, and worked with roses in all the corners. I 've
got them to give!” and grandmamma stroked and smoothed the
blankets, and patted them down, with great pride and tenderness.
It was evident she was giving something that lay very near her
heart; but she never faltered.
“La! mother, there 's no need of that,” said Aunt Hitty. “Use
them on your own bed, and send the blankets off from that; — they
are just as good for the soldiers.”
“No, I shan't!” said the old lady, waxing warm; “'t an't a bit
too good for 'em. I 'll send the very best I 've got, before they
shall suffer. Send 'em the best!” and the old lady gestured oratorically!
They were interrupted by a rap at the door, and two men
entered, and announced themselves as commissioned by Congress to
search out supplies for the army. Now the plot thickens. Aunt
milk-room, down cellar, up chamber, — her cap-border on end with
patriotic zeal; and followed by John, Dick and Gracie, who eagerly
bore to the kitchen the supplies that she turned out, while Mrs.
Ward busied herself in quietly sorting, bundling, and arranging in
the best possible travelling order, the various contributions that were
precipitately launched on the kitchen floor.
Aunt Hitty soon appeared in the kitchen with an armful of
stockings, which, kneeling on the floor, she began counting and
laying out.
“There,” she said, laying down a large bundle on some blankets,
“that leaves just two pair apiece, all round.”
“La!” said John, “what 's the use of saving two pair for me?
I can do with one pair, as well as father.”
“Sure enough,” said his mother; “besides, I can knit you another
pair in a day.”
“And I can do with one pair,” said Dicky.
“Yours will be too small, young master, I guess,” said one of
the commissioners.
“No,” said Dicky; “I 've got a pretty good foot of my own, and
Aunt Hitty will always knit my stockings an inch too long, 'cause
she says I grow so. See here, — these will do;” and the boy
shook his, triumphantly.
“And mine, too,” said Gracie, nothing doubting, having been
busy all the time in pulling off her little stockings.
“Here,” she said to the man who was packing the things into a
wide-mouthed sack; “here 's mine,” and her large blue eyes looked
earnestly through her tears.
Aunt Hitty flew at her. — “Good land! the child 's crazy!
Don't think the men could wear your stockings, — take 'em away!”
Gracie looked around with an air of utter desolation, and began
to cry. “I wanted to give them something,” said she. “I 'd
rather go barefoot on the snow all day, than not send 'em anything.”
“Give me the stockings, my child,” said the old soldier, tenderly.
“There, I 'll take 'em, and show 'em to the soldiers, and
tell them what the little girl said that sent them, and it will do
them as much good as if they could wear them. They 've got
little girls at home, too.” Gracie fell on her mother's bosom completely
happy, and Aunt Hitty only muttered,
“Everybody does spile that child; and no wonder, neither!”
Soon the old sleigh drove off from the brown house, tightly
up to their little beds.
“There 's been something put on the altar of Liberty to-night,
has n't there, Dick?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Dick; and, looking up to his mother, he said,
“But, mother, what did you give?”
“I?” said the mother, musingly.
“Yes, you, mother; what have you given to the country?”
“All that I have, dears,” said she, laying her hands gently on
their heads, — “my husband and my children!”
| The two altars, or, Two pictures in one | |