University of Virginia Library

1. I.

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

I cannot choose but pause and survey the picture: the Kentucky
shore is all hidden with mist, so that I try in vain to see
the young cities of which the sloping suburbs are washed by
the Ohio, river of beauty! except here and there the gleam of
a white wall, or a dense column of smoke that rises through
the silver mist from hot furnaces where swart labor drives the
thrifty trades, speeding the march to elegance and wealth. I
cannot see the blue green nor the golden green of the oat and
wheat fields, that lie beyond these infant cities, nor the dark
ridge of woods that folds its hem of shadows along their borders,
for all day yesterday fell one of those rains that would
seem to exhaust the clouds of the deepest skies, and the soaked
earth this morning sends up its coal-scented and unwholesome
fogs, obscuring the lovely picture that would else present itself.

I can only guess where the garrison is. I could not hear

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

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

Growing, on the view, into familiar shapes, comes out point
after point of the landscape—towers and temples, and forest
and orchard trees, and meadow-land—the marts of traffic and
the homes of men; and among these last there is one, very
pretty, and whose inmates, as you guess from the cream-white
walls, overrun with clematis and jasmine, and the clambering
stalks of roses, are not devoid of some simple refinement of
taste from which an inference of their happiness may be drawn—
for the things we feel are exhibited in the things we do.

The white-pebbled walk, leading from the gate to the doorway,
is edged with close miniature pyramids of box, and the
smoothly-shaven sward is shadowed by various bushes and
flowers, and the gold velvet of the dandelion shines wherever
it will, from the fence close beneath the window sending up its
bitter fragrance out of dew, while sheaves of green phlox stand
here and there, which in their time will be topped with crimson
blossoms.

The windows are hung with snowy curtains, and in one that
fronts the sun, is hung a bird-cage, with an inmate chattering
as wildly as though his wings were free. A blue wreath of
smoke, pleasantly suggestive, is curling upward just now, and
drifting southward from the tall kitchen chimney, and Jenny
Mitchel, the young housewife, as I guess, is baking pies. Nothing
becomes her chubby hands so well as the moulding of
pastry, and her cheerful singing, if we were near enough to

hear it, would attest that nothing makes her more happy. And
well may she sing and be happy, for the rosy-faced baby sits
up in his white willow cradle, and crows back to her lullaby;
and by and by the honest husband will come from healthful
labor, and her handiwork in flour and fruit and sugar and spice,
will be sure of due appreciation and praise.

Nowhere among all the suburban gardens of this basin
rimmed with hills, peeps from beneath its sheltering trees a
cozier home. They are plain and common-sense people who
dwell here, vexed with no indistinct yearnings for the far off
and the unattained—weighed down with no false appreciation,
blind to all good that is not best—oppressed with no misanthropic
fancies about the world—nor yet affected with spasmodic
decisions that their great enemy should not wholly baffle them;
no! the great world cares nothing about them, and they as
little for the great world, which has no power by its indifference
to wound the heart of either, even for a moment. Helph.
Randall, the sturdy blacksmith, whose forge is aglow before the
sunrise, and rosy-cheeked Jenny, his blue-eyed wife, though she
sometimes remembers the shamrock and sighs, have no such
pains concealed.

But were they always thus contented? Did they cross that
mysterious river, whose course never yet run smooth, without
any trial and tribulation, such as most voyagers on its bosom
have encountered since the world began—certainly since Jacob
served seven years for Rachel and was then put off with Leah,
and obliged to serve other seven for his first love? We shall
see: and this brings me back to one of those many Fridays I
have spoken of. I am not sure but I must turn another leaf
and begin with Thursday—yes, I have the time now, it was a
Thursday. It was as bright an afternoon as ever turned the
green swaths into gray, or twinkled against the shadows stretching
eastward from the thick-rising haycocks.