 | Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
MY VISIT TO RANDOLPH
1. I.
Pulls me irresistibly, and drags me
On to his grave.”
Thekla.
We are driving through the storm, always with bright
islands ahead, where the sunshine is showering through green
boughs, where the dew lies all day in the grass, and the birds
sing and sing, and are never tired of music. Sometimes
we drift against these spots of loveliness, and have, to quote
Thekla again, “two hours of heaven.” But alas, it is only
sometimes that we cross these glittering borders of Paradise,
for there are other islands to which we come often, islands of
hot creeping winds, and flat sands, wherein we may plant ourselves,
but never grow much: islands of barren rocks, against
which we find no homeliest vine climbing, though in search of
such we go up and down till the sun sets, and the day fades out,
on the wave that is very dark and very turbulent. It is therefore
needful that our voyaging be skillful as may be, and that
we watch for the good islands with everlasting vigilance. We
may not fail to see the dreary places, but we must have an eye
that the bright ones do not elude our sight; and so, though they
be few, they will satisfy our hearts. It is needful that we be
charitable, limiting as much as we can our distrusts to our own
natures. We may find enough there that we would shrink
from having the kindest eyes look in upon; in the living sea
we shall be at rest, if we are anxious only to discover beauty
and truth.
Some years ago, (I do n't much like to number them, for as
one after another leaves me, I see how the bloom of life has
precisely how long a time—in one of the towns of
the interior—in Randolph. Perhaps the name is altered now
in the geographies. I had grown up in the woods—had never
been from home before, except occasionally to go down to the
city for a day or two, and knew nothing of the conventional
usages even of such a quiet and unheard of place as Randolph.
Full of hope and sympathy, credulous and artless, I did not
know at the time, and it is well I did not, how wholly unprepared
I was to be placed in the midst of a family of the “double
refined.” I was ignorant enough then, to like nature, to suppose
the highest cultivation was only an enlarging of our
appreciation of nature—a conceit of which we are soon cured,
most of us.
It was at the close of one of the mildest of the September
days that I found myself in the village, the visitor of a family
there named Hamersly. I was dusty, tired, and a little home-sick.
Mrs. Hamersly, a widow of “sixty odd,” as she called
herself, I had never seen till that evening; with Matilda Hamersly,
a young lady of forty, or thereabouts, I had previously
some slight acquaintance: Til and Tilda they called her at
home, and these names pleased her much better than that they
gave her in baptism: they had a sort of little-girlish sound
that became her well, she seemed to think; and Frances, or
Frank, a young woman of nineteen, with whom I had been at
school, and knew well—that is, as well as I could know her,
separated from home influences. These three comprised the
family whose guest I was to be.
Frank laughed heartily on seeing me, ran out to meet me,
shook both my hands, and fairly dragged me into the house;
and when she had shown me into the best room, and given me
the best chair, she sat down herself on the carpet at my feet,
tossed back her heavy brown curls, and with her blue eyes full of
laughter and tears, looked in my face, saying only, “How glad
I am!” She never once thought that she was “not dressed”—
that is, that she had on a faded muslin, fitting close to the neck,
and having long sleeves; or that her little white feet were
stockingless, and thrust into slippers somewhat the worse for
gingham apron bore evidences of acquaintance with sundry
kitchen utensils, the names of which are not poetical; she
was unfeignedly glad, and quite unconscious of being unpresentable.
The house wherein my friends dwelt was old and small, containing
in truth only one decent apartment—it being but a
story and a half in height, and only large enough for a “square
room” and hall on the ground floor. Up stairs was a general
store room, a “spare room,” hardly large enough for a lady of
Lilliput, and a sleeping place for the young women. Mrs.
Hamersly, being sixty-odd, disposed herself on a sofa bedstead
in the parlor, at precisely half past nine, at which hour, every
night, by one means or another, the room was cleared of all
occupants. Two or three pots of common flowers adorned the
front window, and they were a great ornament and relief, for
the house stood immediately on the street, so that nothing
green was in sight except the little grass that grew between the
pavement stones. The furniture of this main room was scanty
and old, but was arranged, nevertheless, with some pretensions
to style and effect; I need not describe it—we have all seen
things that in vulgar parlance, “tried to be and could n't;” I
may mention, however, that amongst the furniture was a dilapidated
chair, which had been ornamental in its day, perhaps,
but that was a long time ago, and was “kept wisely for show;”
it was placed conspicuously of course, and its infirmity concealed
as much as might be by means of tidies and cushions,
but it was wholly unfit for use, and whoever attempted to sit in
it was led off by Tilda, with the whispered information that it
was a bad old chair, and played naughty tricks sometimes.
Beside this room and the kitchen, there were about the premises
three other places of which honorable mention was very
frequently made—the kitchen, the refectory, and the court.
The first was a small building of logs, standing some fifteen
feet in the rear of the principal edifice, and which had been
built probably long before the tavern on the corner of Maine
and Washington streets was thought of. It contained a small
pantry, on one side, and on the other a large fireplace, and besides
which hung a shelf containing a curious combination of well-worn
books, and yet another shelf, which held combs, brushes,
curling tongs, a pink paper box filled with Chinese powder, and
articles belonging to the toilet. A circular looking-glass hung
against the wall beside the first mentioned shelf, ingeniously
fixed in its place by means of a brass pin; and the shelf held,
beside the books, a razor, a box of buttons, a spool of cotton-thread,
a pair of scissors, and bits of tape and other strings,
and in a tin candlestick was part of a tallow candle. Beside the
desk was a chair, the original bottom of which had been supplied
by strips of hickory bark, woven very curiously. The
court was an open space between this and the porch leading into
the main building—a little plot of ground which might have
been with small care rendered pretty, but which in reality was
the receptacle of all the refuse of the house. The grass, if it
ever produced any, had been long trodden into the earth, the
water from the kitchen had been dashed down there till the
clay was blue, and planks, and bricks, and stones, served to
make a road across it. It had once been adorned with a common
rose bush and a lilac, but as they stood now, untrimmed
and sprawling, with muddy leaves, and limbs broken and hanging
down, and bits of rags and old paper, and other unseemly
things lodging among them, they were scarcely ornamental, to
say the least. Broken crockery, and all the various accumulations
of such humble housekeeping, lay in this place, denominated
the court, in eye-vexing confusion. Nor was it without
living inhabitants; not a slab nor a dry stone but was occupied;
for here dwelt, or rather came to take the air, six cats and
a small red-nosed and woolly dog, the former lean, and soiled
with soot from pots and kettles, and their ears either notched or
quite gone, from the worrying assaults of the dog, whose natural
snappishness was perhaps aggravated by his scanty feeding.
The refectory was a porch in the rear of the front house, inclosed
at the ends with various sorts of patchwork, and containing
a table and several chairs. Here, in summer, the family
meals were taken.
But to go back to the time of my sitting in the parlor, with
a fruit of subsequent observation. There was a good deal of
creaking of the boards overhead, which I took little notice of
at the time, so engaged were we with each other, when the
stairway door opened, and Mrs. Hamersly entered, leaning on
the arm of her daughter Tilda, both in “full dress.”
“And this is the darling young lady Frank has made us all
in love with,” said the elder of the ladies; “excuse me, my
dear, I am sixty odd,” and she lifted my hand to her lips, which
were white and cold, I thought, and kissed it.
I said, “Certainly, madam,” but whether she wished to be
excused for being sixty odd, or for not kissing my cheek, I was
not quite positive.
“This is my mamma,” said Tilda, in an affected tone, and
giving the old woman a hug, as though she had first met her
after years of separation; then, to me again, “You must love
my mamma, and mind every thing she says, like a good little
girl.”
Mrs. Hamersly, during this speech, seated herself next the
chair that was a chair, and Tilda left off patting my cheek and
smoothing my hair, to put the cushion under her mamma's
feet, the mamma again repeating to me that she was sixty-odd.
Not till she had adjusted her skirts to the widest breadth, and
once or twice slipt the gray curls that she wore through her
delicate fingers, did she observe that Frank was seated on the
carpet.
“Oh my child, my child!” she exclaimed, “do you desire to
kill me?” And she fanned herself violently with her embroidered
handkerchief.
“Mamma, do n't give way so,” drawled Tilda, helping to
fan, “Frank is bad as she can be.”
“Oh Tild, if it were not for you; do reprove her as she deserves:
you know I cannot.”
Then turning to me, she said, “The girl would shock me—so
thoughtless—and I am sixty-odd.”
Tilda administered the requisite reproof in a series of little
boxes upon the ear of Frank, saying, “To think! when you
know so well what is proper! to think, Oh, I can't express my
might have come in and found you in that improper position!
oh dear, dear! Not that I care for Ence; he is nobody; I
do n't care for him more than I care for an old stick of a weed
that grows in the court; but Ence is of the male sex, you know,
and propriety must be observed. Now, mamma, do n't take
on, and we children will all be so good.”
Having said this, she sat down, pulled her skirts out either
side half way across the room, crossed her hands in a proper
way, and opened a conversation in a sort of high-flown oratorical
style, beginning with, “There has been a gwate quwantity
of doost floying to-day.”
Miss Matilda Hamersly was never for a moment free from
affectations. Sometimes she talked wisely and with style and
flourish; this was her method mostly with women and married
and very elderly men, but with marriageable gentlemen of any
age or condition, she talked babyishly, and affected to pout like
a little girl. It was decidedly unbecoming, in view of the gray
hairs and the deep lines below them. In dress, too, she assumed
great juvenility, wearing frocks of the same material and style
as her sister, who was twenty years younger. She would only
admit that she was older in a larger knowledge of the proprieties
of life.
I remember now, that I looked at them, mother and
daughter, sitting there together, as curiously as if they had
just come down from the moon. Mrs. Hamersly wore a gray
silk peculiarly shaded, I thought that night, but I afterwards
discovered that the shading was of only soiling, for she carried
always in her pocket pieces of burnt and greasy cake, which she
occasionally nibbled; she never ate at the table; “My dear,”
she would say, “I am sixty-odd: just give me a cup of tea on
my lap.”
All her ribbons, and she wore as many as could be any way
attached to her, were faded, dirty, or in strings; the lace of
her cap—and it was real lace—was as yellow as dust and
smoke and the sweat of years could make it. From her
waist an eye-glass dangled down, which she sometimes used,
because she thought it looked pretty—always at half past
scare away any visitors, for, merely from caprice, she would
not abide one after that hour.
When she had surveyed me with her glass, she closed her
eyes and leaned back in her chair. She never talked much, in
fact she never did anything, never even moved her chair from
one part of the room to another. She seemed to regard herself
as free of all duty and all responsibility, by limitation of the
law, or elevation above it. Her better life seemed to have
given way before an habitual indolence, till there appeared
scarcely any vitality about her; her face and hands were colorless,
and a fresh corpse, dressed in ribbons and flounces, would
have looked as life-like as she, after composing her skirts and
assuming her fixed smile—not unlike that which comes out
sometimes on the faces of the dead.
Matilda was an overgrown and plain looking old woman,
with a fair share of common sense, but without the discretion
to use it. Unfortunately she wished to appear something she
was not, and so assumed the style of a girl of sixteen, and varied
her conversation from an ambitious rhetoric and elocution
to the pouting and pettishness of a child: in the last making
herself irresistible. Her neck and shoulders she was obliged
to cover; it must have cost her a hard struggle, but when she
had formed the judicious resolution, she maligned everybody
who had not the same necessity; indeed she was quite shocked
that Frank and I could be so indelicate as to appear, especially
before gentlemen, with exposed necks and arms.
I said I was a little homesick on the night of my arrival,
and I am inclined to think, as I recall my visit now, that I was
more than a little so. How long the twilight was in deepening
into night! It seemed to me that the cadaverous white face
of the old woman would never lose any of its sharp outlines in
the shadows, that the great pink flowers in the skirt of Matilda's
dress would never become indistinct in the darkness;
that long and lonesome period betwixt day and night had
never till then seemed so long and so lonesome.
I had been accustomed at Clovernook to go out to a hill that
overlooked the village, a mile away, watching the clouds and
me or the book on my knees—and I could not help thinking
of the field which lay between that hill and the lights of
home, of the cows and the sheep that were sinking to rest
in the dewy grass—in spite of Miss Matilda's efforts to entertain
me.
“You are thinking,” she said, and for once she guessed my
thoughts, “of the cullover fields all sperinkled with caattle,
and of the burooks, and the berriers, and the belossoms—you
will find such gereat resthraint here!”
I said, “Oh no,” for I did not know what else to say, and
Matilda lifted up both hands and observed that “You have no
idea, I suppose of the maanner in which young ladies are expected
to conduct themselves in a place like Randolph.”
For a moment I forgot my dusty and uncomfortable traveling
dress in the music Frank was making with the tea-things—
for after the reprimand she had received, she betook herself to
the kitchen, and now sent me the pleasant tidings of her occupation.
“Tilda, my darling,” said the mamma, opening her eyes,
“restrain that creature, restrain her,” and thereupon Tilda
withdrew, and such parts of the conversation between the sisters
as came to my ears were not calculated to dispel the home-sickness
that had previously made me count the bows in Mrs.
Hamersly's cap, and the panes of glass in the window, and twice
to change my position, ostensibly to examine the portrait of a
young man, which, veiled with green gauze, hung in a very
bad light. I need not repeat their words: enough that Frank
had kept in mind the appetite that was likely to succeed a day
of stage-coach travelling, and was preparing with a liberal
hand.
“Do you suppose she is a bear, starved for a month?” said
Matilda.
“There is Clarence, too: he has not been home to-night you
know,” urged Frank.
“Ence—I 'll warrant you would not forget Ence—he knows
our tea-time, and we do n't keep tavern;” and I thought Matilda
seemed to be removing some of the tea furniture. The
by the light of the moon, entered, and having politely
saluted Mrs. Hamersly, who did not open her eyes, passed
back to where the young women were engaged about the
supper.
“Just an hour and a half too late,” exclaimed Matilda, very
haughtily, I thought.
“I am very sorry,” replied the young man; “Mr. Kipp detained
me in the office.”
“How impertinent,” said the lady, coming into the room
where I was: “Just to think, you know, of the airs which
that fellow assumes—a mere boy pretending to be a man, you
know.”
Here she explained that he was nothing nor nobody but a
printer's boy, that his name was Clarence Howard, and that
he was engaged in the office of her particular friend, Josephus
Kipp, the publisher of the Illuminator; that for the sake of
accommodating said friend, Mr. Josephus Kipp, and also for
that they were lone women—the mamma sixty odd—they had
consented to furnish him with breakfast and tea; but the boy
was beginning to take such advantages of their kindness as
would render some assumption of dignity, on her part, necessary;
for Frank had no maaner, and mamma was sixty-odd.
Here she went into a senseless medley that I need not repeat,
composed mostly of ahs and ohs, and dear-mes, with an intermixture
of lamentations over the frailty of womankind, herself
excepted.
Frank, who had been singing during the early part of her
preparations, ceased, and after a little low-voiced talk with the
young man, appeared, and invited me to drink the tea she had
made for me, but the smile she wore could not conceal the redness
of her eyes.
She wisely limited her invitation to tea, for the table afforded
nothing beside, except three or four mouldy crackers, which
tasted of tallow, and a little preserved quince, which seemed to
have been made a year or two. The little appetite I might
have had for such fare was reduced to nothing, when I saw the
supperless Clarence seated at the desk before-mentioned, reading,
with candles.
I could not help looking at him, nor could Frank, as it
seemed; at any rate she did look at him, though of what
nature her interest was I was not at the time quite certain.
He was good looking, yet it was not for that that he interested
me, I think. His dress was poor, meaner than that of
many common laborers, but the effect of a peculiar beauty he
had seemed little impaired by it. I cannot describe him; for if I
said he had great black melancholy eyes, with a bright spot in
either pale cheek, and brown wavy hair; that he was slight,
and had the sweetest smile and smallest hands I ever saw, you
could not make a correct picture. It may be that the interest
and belief of his beauty were in part owing to the circumstances.
I had never seen a handsome youth making a supper of mouldy
crackers before, and I am not ashamed to say that I felt some
tenderness for him when he divided the last one between the
dog that sat at his feet, looking beseechingly into his face, and
the big gray cat that sprang to his shoulder and locked his long
sleek tail about his neck.
Very poor and very proud were the Hamerslys, and they
preferred stinting their meals to using their hands much.
Miss Matilda gave lessons in drawing for two hours in the
day, and Frank was maid of all work. As for Mrs. Hamersly,
she might as well have been a wooden machine in petticoats
as what she was; in the morning she was dressed and at
night she was undressed, and two or three times in the day her
chair was moved from one place to another, and sometimes
her snuff-box required filling, and her pocket to be replenished
with the burnt pound-cake, which Frank possessed an art of
making and baking always in the same style—heavy and
deeply, darkly brown. Aside from these things she had no
needs that I ever knew of.
During my tea drinking, and I lingered over it somewhat in
order to facilitate an acquaintance with Clarence, Matilda appeared
once or twice at the door, as though matters required
her inspection. At length she informed me that a gentleman
was in the parlor and very impatient to see me; of course I
Mr. Josephus Kipp, publisher of The Illuminator—a rotund
little personage, wearing a white waistcoat, and having a
face of pretty much the same color; a little flaxen hair on
the back of his head, which was bald in front; blue eyes, with
streaks beneath them bluer than they; no teeth, and hands
and feet inordinately large.
He probably ate, and drank, and slept, and bought a new
coat when his old one wore out, but he appeared the most utterly
devoid of character of all persons it was ever my fortune
to meet, reflecting the opinions of whomever he conversed with
as a certain lizard does the color of the substance over which
it crawls.
“Well, Miss Matilda,” he said, after some common-place
observation to me—“Well, Miss Matilda!”
“Mr. Kipp, well, ah well.”
And Miss Matilda adjusted her skirts and bent forward her
head to an attitude of the most devoted attention.
“Well, Miss Matilda.”
“Ah, yes, well, Mr. Kipp.”
“Well, Miss Matilda, it's been a very warm day—yes, it's
been a very warm day, Miss Matilda—it has so, yes, it has.”
“Yes, Mr. Kipp, it's been a warm day.”
“Yes, a very warm day, Miss Matilda.”
“Yes, Mr. Kipp.”
“Mrs. Hamersly, I was saying to your daughter that it's
been a warm day.”
“Yes,” replied the lady, without opening her eyes.
“But Mrs. Hamersly, it's been a very warm day.”
“Tilda, speak for me, dear—be so good as to remember,
Mr. Kipp, that I am sixty-odd.”
And she took snuff, to refresh herself after so unusual an
exertion.
“I am very thoughtless, Miss Matilda,” said Mr. Kipp,
touched with remorse at having shocked by a too familiar approach
the sensibility and dignity of the venerable and distinguished
lady. “Really, I am very thoughtless.”
“Ah no, Mr. Kipp, you are too severe upon yourself—you
she is sixty odd, and she feels so much, you know.”
“But Miss Matilda, I am so thoughtless.”
“No, Mr. Kipp, I'll just get behind the door and cry if you
say that again—now I just will.”
“No, Miss Matilda, I ain't thoughtless—no, I ain't.”
Mr. Kipp not only liked to agree with everybody he conversed
with, but with himself too; and generally when he said
a thing once he repeated it, to assure himself that he agreed
with himself.
“The change we may shortly expect in the weather will be
a great shock to your mother,” he said presently.
“No, Mr. Kipp, I think it will do her good—the warm
weather is so elevating!”
“Yes, Miss Matilda, it will do her good—yes, it will so, it
will do her good. But I am afraid of that shock I gave her,
Miss Matilda, I am afraid of that.”
“Now Mr. Kipp, you bad, naughty person—I'll just be as
unhappy now as I can.” And putting her handkerchief before
her eyes, she affected to execute her purpose.
Here Mr. Kipp asked me if I knew the reason of Miss Matilda's
proposing to get behind the door.
I said no, and he informed me that there was a great attraction
there. Whereupon I remembered the portrait of the gentleman
I had noticed early in the evening.
“Now, Mr. Kipp, it's too bad!” exclaimed Miss Matilda,
affecting to strike him with her hand, and hiding some make-believe
blushes for a moment, and then explaining to me that
the original of the picture was only a friend.
“Miss Matilda, they are coming in—every day they are
coming in—subscribers, you know. The Illuminator is going
to be a great paper—yes, it's going to drive ahead. And I tell
you Miss Matilda, we are going to throw cold water on some
of the scamps that object to the new bridge—for that will be
the making of our town.”
“Mr. Kipp, I do n't like to say, you know—being a woman!
you know what I think, you know—it seems so out of place,
and I do n't know hardly—my mamma knows a great many
bring rough fellows, you know, into town, and corrupt our
society—especially the female portion of it; for my own part,
ah, oh!”—Here her voice was lost in the rustling of her
skirts, and what Miss Matilda thought on this momentous subject
will probably never be known.
“And so your mother thinks, Miss Matilda, the proposed
bridge will do more harm than good?”
“My mamma, you know, is decided—she is a woman, you
know, Mr. Kipp, of a great deal of, of a great deal, you know—
and, and when you see her, Mr. Kipp, you know her most
secret sentiments: she is opposed to the bridge.”
“Yes. Well, Miss Matilda, so am I. If them fellows gets
it, they will have to fight hard against me and the Illuminator.
Yes, Miss Matilda, they will have to fight hard.”
At this point I lost some of the profound discussion, so important
to the village—for through the window, against which
I sat, I could see Frank and Clarence walking across and across
the plank that bridged the blue mud—the youth appearing
wofully dispirited; and though the girl seemed trying to comfort
him, she evidently succeeded but ill.
“I wish I was dead,” I heard him say repeatedly; “there is
nothing for me to live for.”
“Oh no, Clarence, that is wrong. One of these days it will
rain porridge, and then, if your dish is right side up, how pleasant
it will be!”
“Nobody cares for me,” he replied, “and I do n't care for
myself any more.”
“Well, I do n't know as any body cares for me,” said the
girl, and her laughter indicated that it gave her small trouble
if they did not.
“Just look at these rags!” he said—and turning toward her,
he surveyed himself from head to foot, as if in contempt.
“And what of it?” she asked; “you will get more some way.
I have only one dress beside this; but may be the two will
last me as long as I shall live to want them, and if they do n't,
why I shall get more, no doubt of it.” And she laughed again
more heartily than before.
The young man removed his hat, which was of straw, though
it was quite past the season for straw hats, and pressed his
small hand against his forehead.
“Are you dizzy, Clarence?” she asked.
“No,” he answered; and replacing the hat on his head, and
drawing it over his brows, he locked his hands behind him, and
crossed and recrossed the plank which formed his little promenade,
with a hurried and irregular step, while the girl seated
herself on the edge of the porch, and leaned her head on her
hand, musingly.
There was a long silence, but at last the youth paused before
her abruptly, and said, in a voice low and almost tremulous,
for he seemed naturally enough to suppose himself the subject
of her thoughts, “What are you thinking about, Frank?”
“Oh, I was n't thinking at all, I was half a sleep;” and
shaking back her curls, she arose, and went into the house.
He looked after her for a moment, and opening a side gate,
disappeared.
I only perceived that he was restless and unhappy—only knew
that she did not and could not understand him—but I was disquieted
when I saw them go their separate ways—he alone
into the night, to wrestle with an ambitious and embittered
soul, and she to careless sleep.
I was recalled by an unusual rustling of Miss Matilda's
skirts, together with an unusual prudishness of manner and
affectation of tone.
“Mr. Kipp,” she said at last, “I have been wanting to ask
you something, so much!”
“Yes, well, Miss Matilda, you want to ask me something—
yes, well, Miss Matilda, a great many ask me questions, a great
many that want advice, Miss Matilda, and a great many that
do n't want advice. The Illuminator, Miss Matilda, the Illuminator—I
tell you, Miss Matilda, you must write an article
for it. I think dialogue would be best; an article of about
three columns and a quarter in length.
“I think I should prefer the essay,” said Miss Matilda.
“Yes, the essay—that's what I meant—that would do—yes,
yes, one of your essays.”
“But, Mr. Kipp.”
“Well, Miss Matilda, I'm at your service, and I'm just as
much at the service of every one. Yes, Miss Matilda, yes, I'm
a serviceable man.”
Mr. Kipp could generally express a wonderful deal of nothing
with astonishing volubility; he had now said something positive,
which came near wounding Miss Matilda.
“If you are at the service of every one, Mr. Kipp, I shall not—
Oh, I do n't know, but I 'll not feel the same, you know.”
“At the service of others, through the Illuminator, and at
your service, through the Illuminator, too. I met Judge Morton
in the street this morning—you know Judge Morton—he is a
man of immense property. Well, I met him this morning,
right the next block to my office, and says he, `Good morning,
Kipp;' and says I, `Good morning, Judge;' and says he, `It's a
fair day, Kipp;' and I says, `Yes, Judge, it's a fair day;' and
then, says he, `Kipp,' says he, `when you established the Illuminator,
there were no buildings about here like these'—and he
pointed in particular to Metcalf's new house; and Metcalf—
Senator Metcalf, you know—well, he came to the door while we
stood there, and says he, `Good morning, Kipp;' and says I,
`Good morning, Metcalf;' and after standing a minute, he went
in. He wears blue trowsers generally, but to-day he had on
black. Well, he went in.
“After Morton and I had talked sometime about national
affairs, says he, `Kipp,' and says I, `Morton,' (I always omit
the judge in conversing with him, we 're so familiar;) `Well,'
says he, `Kipp, here 's a little notice of me that I want you to
put in the Illuminator as editorial.' And says I, `Morton, at
your service.' Just what I said to you, Miss Matilda. And he
says to me, says he, `Come and dine with me, Kipp,' says he;
`we have always pork and beans, or less'—and he went along
down street.”
“Quite a little adventure, was n't it?” said Matilda.
“Yes, Miss Matilda, Judge Morton is a man that lives here
right amongst us, and he makes himself so agreeable and so
notorious; and we all know him, Miss Matilda, that's the
point. Yes, Miss Matilda, decidedly an adventure.”
“But, Mr. Kipp—you know—I—you know—in short, Mr.
Kipp, you never said a wiser thehing.”
It is difficult to represent with letters Miss Matilda's elegant
and peculiar pronunciation, and so for the most part it is left
to the reader's imagination.
“Yes, Miss Matilda, yes, I agree with you, I never said a
wiser thing.”
“Oh no, Mr. Kipp, I made a borroad assertion—you have said
things that manifested more depth of feeling, more metaphysical
perspicacity, you know.”
“Well, yes, Miss Matilda, you are right—I have said some
smart things, and yet not so smart either as they were radical.
I met Governor Latham at the Springs last summer. Miss
Matilda, did you go to the Springs? Well, Miss Matilda,
there were a good many there; and as I was saying, I met
Governor Latham there—a little imaginative looking man he
is, and he wore a white waistcoat at the Springs. `Well'—says
he to me one day—we had just finished a segar—I do n't know
whether we had been talking about the Illuminator or not,
but says he to me, `Kipp,' and says I, `Latham;' and says he,
`Kipp,' says he, `you 're a rascally radical!' And I laughed,
and Latham laughed.”
He paused, to enjoy his elevation, and then said, “Miss Matilda!”
“Yes, Mr. Kipp!”
“There were a good many at the Springs.”
There was another season of fidgeting—a good deal of
affected embarrassment on the part of the lady—when she said,
“You know Mr. Kipp, I said, I said—oh, it 's so awkward, you
know, for a woman to approach a delicate matter; one you
know, that—that—but I have an affection, Mr. Kipp, that
mamma thinks requires medical treatment.”
“An affection of the heart?”
And Mr. Kipp laughed; he had no doubt that he had said a
witty thing.
“No, Mr. Kipp,” said Matilda, affecting innocent unconsciousness—“Mamma
thinks it is not the heart.”
“I wish, Miss Matilda, it was the heart, and that its affection
was for me!”
“Oh, you bad man!” she exclaimed. And this time she
really went behind the door, and pouted for a time, letting us
see her all the while. The movement did not become Miss
Matilda Hamersly very well.
She was at length brought forth by the repentant Mr. Kipp,
pulling away from his hand much as I have seen a calf drawing
back from the farmer who would have put it into a stable:
but she presently wiped her eyes and smiled again, saying, “I
believe I will just ask you as if you were my brother—we are
so unprotected, and have no one to ask things, you know.”
“Do, Miss Matilda.”
“And you won't think anything?”
“If I do, Miss Matilda, may I be shot.”
“Just pretend you are my brother, you know. I do n't
know what 's right for me to do. I wish mamma would
tell me.”
“You do n't know, Tilda; well, I do n't believe you do.”
“Well, Mr. Kipp, if I was to say anything, and if it was to
be wrong—knowing how lonely and unprotected we are—would
you think anything?”
“No, Tilda—'pon my soul, I never think anything.” And
the editor of the Illuminator hitched his chair a whole width
of carpet nearer to the diffident and excessively proper young
woman.
“Well then, you are my brother, you know”—here she
looked at him beseechingly, and as though she hesitated yet.
“Anything, Tilda, I 'll be anything.”
“Well then, do you—how foolish—how awkward!”—
“Yes, Tilda, it is.”
“Do you, Mr. Kipp?”
“Call me Josephus, Tilda.”
“How foolish I am—all in a tremor—just feel!”
And she extended her hand to Josephus, who, having given
another hitch, retained it.
“Now I am just going to be as bold as other girls—may n't
I be, Mr.—Josephus—and you won't think anything?”
Mr. Kipp seemed to answer by a pressure of the hand, for
he said nothing.
“Do you know folks in Henry-street? Tell me true now.”
“Why yes, Tilda, I know a good many there—I have six
subscribers in that street. I met one of them as I was coming
here to-night—Rev. Dr. Chandler, it was—and he said, `How
are you Kipp?' and I said `How are you?' and he passed
up street, and I came here.”
“Do you know a family there of the name of Brown?
Now you know you promised not to think anything.”
“Brown, that was commissioner of the peace? Yes, I published
a didactic piece on the canal basin from his pen a week
or two ago. Yes, Tilda, I published a poem from him. An
epic, it was.”
“Well Josephus—brother, do you know Mrs. Brown?”
“Yes, Tilda—not to say well, however—I have met her
under peculiar circumstances, and I know her as well as I know
Governor Latham's wife—that is to say, I consider myself
well acquainted.”
“Is she well?”
“As to that, Tilda, I can't be positive. The last time I met
Brown, says I, `How are you, and how is Mrs. Brown?' and
says he, `Thank you, Kipp;' and I do n't remember, as to her
health, what he said.”
“Do you ever visit in the family, or, I mean, have you lately?”
“No, I have n't—yes, I have too—yes, I was there—I can't
say the day.”
“How many children have they? Now you must n't think
anything queer.”
“They have six, or seven, or eight; I can't say precisely.”
At this point of the conversation Matilda covered up her
face, and after two or threee unsuccessful essays, actually
inquired how old was the youngest.
It might be a year old, or it might be six months, or it might
be three—the Illuminator could not enlighten her more nearly.
“I cannot say more now,” said Matilda. “Perhaps I had
best consult a female friend. I 'll ask my mamma, and do just
what she says. I have had some doubts about the propriety
of something that it seems necessary for me to do. Do n't ask
me to explain.”
Mrs. Hamersly here took a long survey of the clock through
her glass, and Mr. Kipp arose to go—Miss Matilda saying,
“Now do n't teaze me, and do n't think anything;” and he
replying, as he pressed her hand to his heart, that he would n't
tease her, and would n't think anything; and that he would
teaze her and would think something.
And so they parted—Matilda saying, from the door, that she
was afraid she had done something wrong; she had talked so,
she did n't know how; and that she believed she would cry
herself to death.
The sensation induced by the editor's departure over, both
parties recurred to my friend Frank.
“Frank! Where is my child?” exclaimed Mrs. Hamersly,
as if for the first time aware that the girl was not present.
“Oh, heavenly Father!” ejaculated Matilda, “I quite lost
sight of her in my agitation on that—that theme that no woman
of delicacy could approach without a shock to her modesty”—
and she foundered out of the room, saying, “do n't give way,
mamma; she cannot be keeping company with that dreadful
Ence—she cannot so have forgotten propriety—and after such
examples! Saints and angels help us!”
“I'll tell Mr. Kipp, see if I do n't, and that ungrateful boy
shall be punished—and he has been like a father to him, and I
have been like a sister—I 'll tell Mr. Kipp how ungrateful the
wretch is.”
Frank was presently discovered, fast asleep in the kitchen,
but Matilda had become so alarmed by the terrible apprehension
that she was talking with the wretch, Clarence, that it was
a long while before she could be quieted. Young girls were so
reckless and improper—she was astonished that all the gentlemen
were not disgusted—it was shocking—it was too bad to
talk about. She knew a young lady, one that was called
respectable, too, that had been seen in the street, so it was
reported, wearing a low-necked dress—she could n't hardly
believe it, and yet she knew several persons, whose veracity
she could not doubt, who had told her they had seen this certain
person in the street, without a bit of a thing on her
neck.
A great many scandals she repeated, telling me over and
over that such things were very repulsive to her, and that she
often wished she could live in some cave, away in a desert or
a wilderness, where she could be secure from the vile gossip
that now so much afflicted her.
When Frank had been asleep an hour, she was wide awake,
and talking, apparently with the greatest zest, about the improprieties
of which she had known various persons to be guilty;
and when Frank had been asleep two hours, she was talking
with still greater animation than before. Midnight came and
went, and she seemed as fresh and earnest as ever. At last she
asked me if I had thought anything of what she said to Mr.
Kipp. She was afraid she had overstepped the bounds of
propriety. She was alarmed, when she thought of it. She
would tell me all about it, and ask my advice. So, sometime
between the hours of twelve and two, I came to the knowledge
of Matilda's peculiar difficulty.
Did I think it would be proper and prudent for her, a
maiden lady as she was, to call in the doctor, for advice in
reference to her own ailments, when he passed by on his visit
to Mrs. Brown, whose babe she was sure could not be more
than two months old! This most difficult and profoundly
cogitated question she propounded in a whisper.
Of course I saw no impropriety in seeing her physician, if
ill; but all at once the lady remembered I was a country
girl, and of course did not and could not know what rigid
scrutiny must accompany every action of woman in a place
like Randolph.
It must have been near daylight when I felt myself being
lifted into the “litter of close-curtained sleep,” and the sounds
of “propriety,” “female delicacy,” “virgin modesty,” and the
like, gradually growing more indistinct.
At the end of ten days, my acquaintance with Clarence had
ripened but little. I had met him every day at breakfast and
tea; but though we sometimes exchanged glances of recognition,
Matilda's presence completely interdicted any conversation.
2. IV.
I noticed one evening that Clarence was unusually dejected.
I heard him speak to Frank in a low tone, and heard her
answer, “Oh never mind, Clarence—there are four little kittens
in a barrel in the refectory, come and see them.” But he lighted
the tallow candle, and took up a book.
While I was wishing that I could comfort and encourage
him in some way, there was a rap at the door. “Miss Matilda,
you are looking well, yes you are so; you are looking exceedwell;”
I heard a voice say. “Ah,” she replied, “I do n't know
how it can be—I have such cares—to keep two young girls,
you know, within the bounds of female propriety, is a task that
is wearing me down. Do n't I look pale?”
“Yes, Miss Matilda, you look pale”—and then to be quite
assured that he agreed with himself, he repeated, “Yes, you
do look pale, and it is so.”
Here was a blessed opportunity to escape; Matilda would
not think of me while Mr. Kipp remained; and as for the mamma,
she sat in state, and with her eyes closed, as usual: that
is, she had the largest number of soiled ribbons about her,
and a snuff-box and piece of burnt pound-cake in her hands. And
Frank was busy in an obsure corner, trying to pull down her
stockings, so as to conceal the holes in the heels. Under such
a combination of circumstances, I actually eluded an arrest in
my passage from the parlor to the kitchen. A part of the
afternoon and all the evening the rain had been falling, and as
neither roof nor windows of the kitchen were water-proof, the
old place looked more dismal than common. There were
damp patches in the wall, and puddles standing in the floor,
and the little fire was dying out under the gradual dropping.
Clarence sat at the desk where I had left him, the book open
before him; but he seemed not to be reading, nor yet to be
aware that the gathering rain was falling on him where he sat.
At first he was shy and incommunicative, but I was interested
in him, and more than willing to do him service, so, after
a while I won my way to his confidence.
I laid the embers together, and we drew our chairs to the
story of his life.
His mother, whom he scarcely remembered, was dead; his
father, a profligate and thriftless man, hired him about in one
place and another, while he was yet a boy, and now that he
was grown to manhood, still lived mainly upon his wages.
Kept always at servile employment, and deprived of the
little compensation he should have received, his spirit had been
gradually broken, and his ambition lost. No one cared enough
for him to say do this, or that, or why do you thus or so?
He had drifted about, doing what chance threw in his way;
and was now standing on the verge of manhood, aimless and
hopeless. He liked books, and read, but without system or
object; to work, or “draw water in a sieve,” were all one to
him; “It matters not what I undertaken,” he said, “I can't get
along.”
“Your heart is not in your duties,” I answered.
“No—how can it be? look at me; I have no clothes but
these.”
“You can easily get others.”
“No: whether I earn much or little it is taken from me Saturday
night—all except, indeed, enough to clothe me as I am,
and to pay for the miserable pittance I have here.”
“And where do you sleep?”
“On the waste paper in the printing office.”
A sorry enough prospect, I felt, but there was hope yet. I
could not advise him to abandon his parent, altogether, though
I thought it would not be wrong for him to do so; but I urged
him to retain for himself a portion of all he earned, and to
obtain somewhere else meals that would be a little more substantial.
At this suggestion he hesitated and blushed; there was no
need of a confession—he was more than half in love with
Frank.
What a mystery, I thought; she is so unlike him; but on
consideration the riddle was revealed—she had been as kind
to him as she knew how to be. I am but an indifferent comforter
and counsellor, I fear, and yet it was astonishing to see
that helped him: nothing else.
At ten o'clock, or thereabouts, our conference was broken
off by the abrupt entrance of Matilda. Her astonishment, on
seeing us both seated on one hearth, though the hearth was ample
enough to accommodate a dozen persons, was so great that
she fainted, or at least fell into the arms of Clarence, and said
she swooned.
The lecture I received for this indiscretion I need not repeat,
but I may say that I never discovered any unwillingness on the
part of Miss Matilda Hamersly to converse with Clarence
Howard or any other man, old or young, wise or witless. It
was a disagreeable duty, she said, that of entertaining gentlemen—Frank
being a mere child, and mamma sixty-odd. “Oh,
I wish you girls were old enough to take the responsibility,”
she was in the habit of saying, when visitors came, “I am so
adverse to gentlemen's society.”
This awful outrage of propriety, that is, the confidential conference
which Clarence and I had in the kitchen, resulted, in a
day or two, in the dismissal of Clarence from the house.
“And yet,” said Matilda, “there is one thing I like the boy
for—he never speaks to me.”
This ejectment was painful to Clarence, I knew, but he endured
it better than I had hoped; he had now a prospect of a few
shillings ahead, and there is no influence that stays up the hands
like this.
“You must not forget me, Frank,” he said in a voice that
was a little unsteady, and holding her hand close in his.
“Oh no,” she replied ingenuously; “our milk-man was gone
once two years, and when he came back I knew him; but
do n't squeeze my hand so, Clarence.”
He left his books on the shelf till he should find a new home,
he said; but rather, I suspected, as a sort of link that bound him
to the cottage.
In the course of Miss Matilda's perigrinations about town, she
became acquainted with an impish youth, who interested her,
she said, for reasons—in fact—in short—really, she did n't
know—he had one great fault—he liked the ladies—a disposition
but she. They were so unprotected—only females in the
house—for their safety, it was necessary to have a man about,
of nights. She wished she was like other women—less timid,
and less averse to—but she could n't help it.
All this Miss Matilda conveyed to the knowledge of Mr.
Kipp; and also hinted, that the new man would more than supply
the place of Clarence in the office of the Illuminator, and at
the same time he could take tea and breakfast with them, and
so afford the protection that woman must have, however averse
her feelings were to so much as the touch of a gentleman's
finger, even, to her apron string.
“But does he know anything of types?”
“Oh, I forgot to say I heard he was half a printer.”
“Well, Miss Matilda,” said Mr. Kipp, “your advice is always
good, and I should not be surprised if I saw the person you
speak of as I was coming here to-night—tall, was he, Miss
Matilda?”
“No, Mr. Kipp, he was short.”
“My name is Josephus, Tilda. And you say he is short?”
“Yes, Josephus.”
“And has he black hair?”
“No, Josephus, red.”
“And his face is pale, ain't it?”
“No, Josephus, red and brown.”
“Well, I 've seen him—at the Springs, or Governor Latham's,
or somewhere. Yes, I have seen him—yes, I know I
have seen him. Miss Matilda!”
“Josephus.”
“I've seen him, Miss Matilda.”
The night following, the impish young man sat in the parlor,
conversing with all the wisdom of gray hairs, with Miss Matilda.
She was no doubt trying to wean him from his liking for
the ladies. And poor Clarence—under the weight of his new
discouragement, was heavy enough at heart.
We were gathering berries, Frank and I, in the woods adjoining
Randolph, when we discovered Clarence sitting on a decayed
log, his eyes bent on the ground, and his cheek hollow and
but turned instead into the thicker woods.
We playfully rallied him, for thus abandoning two unprotected
females, and finally succeeded in making him laugh.
He had been idling about for several days, not knowing and
scarcely caring what was to become of him. I encouraged him
to new efforts, and he grew cheerful and hopeful, and promised
when we parted from him at night, that he would try once
more. But I am now inclined to think it was Frank, who had
said nothing, rather than I, who had said much, who induced
the brave resolution. He found difficulty in executing it, however.
There were opportunities enough for other lads, who
seemed to have nothing special to recommend them, but when
he applied, employers hesitated.
“You are the boy who was with Kipp, they said. “Why,
he is a good fellow, could n't you get along with him?”
Of course, Clarence could only say Mr. Kipp had always
been kind and generous to him; thus taking on himself all
the fault of his discharge from the editor's service.
The employers then said they would think of his proposal,
or that they had partly engaged another lad, or they made
some other excuse, that sent him sorrowful away.
At last his quest was successful; he obtained in the Randolph
post-office a situation as clerk.
For a fortnight or so all went on well. Clarence looked
smiling and happy; a new hat and new pair of boots took the
places of the old ones; his cheek was growing rounder, and his
eyes losing something of their melancholy.
The postmaster said, so it was reported, that he never
wanted a better boy in his employ than Clarence; the young
women smiled when they met him, and the sun to his vision was
a great deal bigger and brighter than it had ever been before.
That was the little heyday of his life.
There was great excitement in the town of Randolph one
morning. Groups of men were seen talking at the corners of
the streets and before the doors of groceries; at first in whispers,
but gradually louder and louder, till there was one general
hum. Young lads, who had never been known to smoke,
themselves: they felt suddenly lifted up into the importance
of manhood, and bitter denunciations fell from many a beardless
lip.
A dozen or more women might have been seen leaning from
the windows of their homes, half way into the street, and one
of them was Miss Matilda Hamersly.
And among the lads who were smoking, and throwing more
stones at the stray dogs than usual, was Miss Malinda's protegé,
Ebenezer Rakes—“Neeze,” as the patroness called him. At
length, in answer to the beckoning of her lily hand, he approaches,
and as she leans still lower from the window, informs
her that Clar Howard has been took up and shot up in jail, for
abstracting a thousand dollars from a letter, which was lying in
the Randolph post-office.
“Good heavens!” exclaims Matilda; “I always expected as
much—he had such a bad look in his eyes! Did you see the
constable take him?”
“Yes, I seen him took, but he was n't took by the constable;
he was took by the sheriff's warrant; they tied his hands with
a rope, and he tried to hide 'em under his coat as he went
along, but he could n't come it.”
“Did he seem to feel bad?” asked Matilda.
“He shed some crokadile tears, I b'leeve,” said “Neeze,”
“but them as took him would n't ontie him for that. If I had
had my way, I'd a strung him up on the nearest tree, and
made an example of him.”
“It's a wonder,” says Matilda, “that he never took anything
here; he was among us just as one of the family, just as you
are, Neeze.”
Neeze says he would advise an examination of the valuables
belonging to the house, and Matilda hopes he will be home
early at night—they are so unprotected—she shall be afraid if
a little mouse stirs. And with this appeal, in her tenderest
tone, she withdraws that portion of her person into the house
which has previously been in the street, counts the teaspoons,
and repeats the news; after which she runs across the garden,
still looking and listening.
“Frank, my child, move my chair a bit nearer the wall,”
says Mrs. Hamersly; and this is her only demonstration of
interest in the matter.
“I wonder if it's dark, where he is?” says Frank, “and what
Mr. Kipp will say?”
Mr. Kipp, as publisher of the Illuminator, is the one man of
all the world, to her; there will be a paragraph in his journal;
she will read it with more interest than she feels in similar
paragraphs generally, for that Clarence used to live with
them. So, having wondered what Mr. Kipp will say, she
takes the milk pan to the “court,” and the lean cats breakfast
from it.
In the course of the day, Matilda took the books which
belonged to Clarence from the accustomed shelf, with the
express intention of burning them. It required all my efforts
to dissuade her, but I did so at length, though she would not
listen to my assurance that he would reclaim them before long;
for I could not be persuaded of his guilt.
Agreeably to the promise obtained of his patroness, Neeze
came home early that night, and it seemed that the two would
never have done talking of the robbery.
Half past nine came, and Mrs. Hamersly, as usual, eyed the
clock through her glass; but Matilda would not see it; ten
came, and still they talked—five, ten, fifteen minutes more.
“My child, I shall go into convulsons,” said the mamma, in
her customary passionless tone.
“The saints protect us!” cried Matilda, and she held up her
apron as a screen.
From this night forward, the wrinkled face of Matilda was
often seen near the downy cheek of the boy, Neeze. There
was evidently a great and growing interest between them,
partly based upon the accusation of poor Clarence, and partly
on the rumor that Mr. Kipp was suddenly enamored of a rich
and beautiful girl of twenty.
This last report, if true, was fatal to all the lady's hopes,
though she often said she could not believe it, inasmuch as he
especially with her aversion to the marriage state.
But facts are truly stubborn things, and will make head
against a great many probabilities and possibilities, and Miss
Matilda's faith in Mr. Kipp's celibate intentions was broken at
last—utterly dissipated, under the following circumstances.
After a cessation of visits for a time, Mr. Kipp once more
honored Mrs. Hamersly's house with his presence.
“You must have been very happy of late—I hope you have
been, I am sure;” said Matilda, seating herself further from the
illuminated gentleman than she was wont, and speaking without
her usual affectations—she was too much in earnest.
“Well, yes, Miss Matilda; I met my friend Doane this
morning, one of the richest men in town here. Do you know
Doane?”
“I do not.”
“Well, Miss Matilda, I 'd been writing letters before I set
out: one to Mr. Johnson, of Massachusetts, and one to somebody,
I forget who. Well, I met Doane, and he is a good-natured
fellow, Doane is; and says he, `How are you Kipp?'
and says I, `Doane I 'm glad to see you;' and says he—no,
says I, then—no, I forget what I said; and then says he, `You
look happy, Kipp.' And I laughed, and Doane laughed.
Doane is a shrewd fellow, Miss Matilda—he's independent.”
“Ah!” said Miss Matilda.
“Yes, he is a cunning fellow; yes, he is so.”
A long silence.
“Miss Matilda,” says Mr. Kipp, at last.
“Well, sir,” she answers, biting her lip.
“Miss Matilda.”
“Well, sir,” more decidedly.
“I think there will be rain, Miss Matilda.”
“I do not, sir.”
“Well, nor I, Miss Matilda; I would n't be surprised if it
did n't rain for a month: No, I would n't. Miss Matilda.”
“Say on sir,” she said, with a voice and look, into which
were thrown all the dignity of the Hamerslys.
“I would n't be surprised.”
“What would surprise you, Mr. Kipp?”
“Why, for instance, Miss Matilda, it would surprise me if
you were to get married!”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Why, Miss Matilda, I mean—in fact, I mean, it would not
surprise me in the least.”
“I suppose you think you could get married?” said Matilda,
“and I am sure I do n't care how soon you do so.”
“No, Miss Matilda, I could n't get married if I wanted to.”
“What, Mr. Kipp?” in tones slightly softened.
“I could n't Miss Matilda—nobody would have me.”
“How strange you do talk,” said the lady, a little tenderness
thrown suddenly into her voice.
“It 's a fact.”
“Now, Mr. Kipp, you know better!” in quavers positively
sweet.
It 's a fact, Miss Matilda.”
“Mamma, wake up, and look at naughty Mr. Kipp, and see
if he ain't crazy. I do believe you are out of your head.” And
she stooped over him gracefully, and laid her hands on his forehead.
“Well, Miss Matilda, what do you think?”
“Really, Josephus, I do n't know—it seems so queer—I
wish mamma would wake up—I can't tell whether men are in
their head or not; mamma's sixty-odd, and she—oh, she knows
a great many things: but Josephus, look right in my eyes, and
tell me why you can't get married.” And she bent down very
fondly, and very closely.
One moment of blessed expectancy, and the last venture
was wrecked. Mr. Kipp could n't marry, because he had already
taken the pretty and rich young lady “to hold and to keep.”
“I am sure I wish you well,” Matilda said, with her former
asperity of manner—“I would n't lay a straw in the girl's way
if I could.”
Her hands dropt from the forehead of Mr. Josephus Kipp, as
she made this benevolent declaration; and she all at once
remembered that Mr. Rakes had not yet had supper!
“I am sure,” she said an hour afterwards, to that wise young
have money; she had n't much else to recommend her.”
That night the gossipping was more bitter, and of longer continuance
than before. Matilda believed, she said, there was
not a single woman in Randolph but who would get married if
she could, and that was all she wanted to know about them;
for herself, she wished all the men had to live one side of the
town and all the women the other; and she appealed to
Neeze, to know if it would not be nice; upon which Neeze
threw the cigar from his mouth, and drew his chair up to Miss
Matilda, in order to favor her with the expression of his
opinions on this interesting topic.
Mrs. Hamersly was again outraged. She did n't care, she
said, if they sat up all night, and kept the house in an uproar,
when she was dead; they need only wait till she was decently
buried; that was all she asked.
At last Mrs. Hamersly chanced to open her eyes one night,
and see the hand of Matilda, that pattern of propriety, around
the neck of Ebenezer Rakes! The lady's spirit was now fully
roused, the dignity of the house must be maintained, and she
would maintain it at some little cost. Mr. Rakes was summarily
dismissed from the premises, and Matilda's clothing carefully
locked away, and the door of her chamber nailed up every
night.
I need not linger over details; a night or two of this imprisonment,
and Frank and I awoke from sleep one morning, to
find the bed-cord dangling from the window, and Matilda gone.
Mr. Rakes was found missing too. That, “with an unthrift
love they had run from Randolph,” there could be no doubt.
Frank wondered what Mr. Kipp would say when he heard
of it, and stepped into Matilda's place in giving drawing lessons;
and said she thought there would be some way to get
along.
Clarence was soon at liberty, for there was no proof of
his guilt discovered, but he could not be free from the stigma
that attached to him.
The town's folks were distrustful, and looked upon him curiously
as he went abroad; few would employ him, and those
formed the resolution, which, under the circumstances, was a
very brave one, of going into a strange place, to seek his
fortune.
When he told us, Frank and I, she said it would be a nice
thing, and I could not dissuade him, nor encourage, more than
to say “the world was all before him, where to choose,” and I
wished him heartily success and happiness.
It was useless to say there were other places as good as Randolph,
and that he would make other and better friends: he
knew no other world, and all he loved was there.
A mile to the south of the village stood the stump of an elm
tree, white as silver, for the bark was gone, and it had been
bleaching there many years.
“Go with me to the elm stump,” he said, when he was ready
to set out. It was night—for he had waited, that no one might
remark his going—damp and cloudy, nor moon, nor star in
sight. Over his shoulder he carried a budget, containing a few
books and all the clothes he had. The road was dusty, and we
walked on in silence, for there seemed nothing more to say;
so the tree was reached before we had exchanged half a dozen
words.
He looked toward the next hill, as we paused, as if he would
ask us to proceed, but presently said, “No, it 's no use, I would
never be ready to go on alone.”
While we stood there a beggar passed, looking lean and
hollow-eyed. He reached his hand toward us, and Clarence
seeing his rags, sadly said to us, “I shall look that way one
of these days.”
Before we separated, he untied the bundle spoken of, and
taking out two old and worn volumes, gave each of us one,
saying, as he wiped them with his hand, “They will remind
you of me sometimes, maybe.”
With many of the best qualities of the heart, and the finest
instincts of intelligence, poor Clarence, it was easy to see, had
little of that bravery of nature which is indispensable to success
in the world; and observing with what spirit he set out
on his quest for fortune, it was easy to perceive that there was
which he had arranged with my friend Frank and myself, was
indescribably sad to me, who felt far more anxious for the
youth's happiness than Frank had ever felt, or was capable of
feeling.
Poor Clarence! there was a defect in his nature—a very
common defect—fatal to all growth, and destructive of every
element of success, or even of nobleness in aspiration or in
conduct. Like many young men encountered every day, lagging
behind ambitious crowds, he had some fine instincts, with
vague perceptions of beauty, and generous affections; but of
one thing he was lacking still, and always, Will, the parent of
faith and energy. How frequent are the instances in which
a single brave and persistent effort would raise one's life from
all the quicksands and shoals which environ the youth of so
great a majority, into the clear sea, over which blow forever
prosperous gales! Cowardice, despondency, inertia, were never
startled from their ascendency in Clarence's soul by even a
half-trial of his powers; and it might have been foretold,
therefore, that his going out into the world would be in vain.
When, in emergencies which most demand it, we see evinced
no will—such as has that power the Master said belonged to
faith—it is well to put on our mourning: it were quite as well
with the poor, if, instead, there were an end of life.
Long after Frank was asleep that night, I lay thinking of
Clarence—wondering how far he had got now, and now; and
saying, now, that he might come back, and be with us again in
the morning. But he never came back.
Though I so perfectly understood his infirmities, which forbade
any reasonable expectation of a happy future for him, his
better qualities so deeply interested my feelings, that in fancy
I still shaped out a bright future for him—of his sometime coming
home to Randolph, a great man, whom the people could
not praise and honor enough.
It was one day in the following spring, that, tired of working
in the flower-beds, I stopped to rest in the faint shadow of the
newly budding lilac. A scrap of newspaper held my flower-seeds;
I emptied them in my lap, and, as my habit is, read,
thus, by such chance, I learned all I have ever learned of Clarence's
fate: he had died months before in one of the southern
cities.
As I planted my flowers, I wished that I might plant them
on his grave; but their frail leaves could not have sheltered
him better than he was, and is.
The postmaster of Randolph was ultimately convicted of the
theft attributed to his clerk, whose name, too late, was freed
from a blot.
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