Part 14

EVENING IN THE VILLAGE.--Little Bobby stands on the piazza, dressed in his _fifth_ white robe and sash, since the amorous sun kissed the tears from nature's face, this blessed morning. Poor Bobby! His temper isn't improved by it; and as to his nurse, were it not for her "wages," she would like to fricassee Bobby. Poor wretch! but just wait till Bobby and his mamma are safe in bed. Wont _she_ enjoy her freedom in a pink neck-ribbon, flirting by moonlight with Tom--the head-waiter? So would _you_. I don't blame her. You and I haven't the monopoly of moonlight; although, 'tis true, they might phrase their vows more grammatically; and if they _could_ make up their minds not to kiss so loud under my window, I should sleep better of nights. As the sun declines, how lovely lie the purple shadows on the grateful coolness. Ladies are driving past, smiling, and prodigal of sweet words to the husbands of--_their friends! Their_ husbands are similarly occupied. "Fair exchange is no robbery," saith the proverb. Smith used to like black hair, when he married his Belinda; but since he saw Jones' wife with her blonde locks tied with a blue ribbon he is a penitent man. Belinda don't care--Mrs. Jones' husband has "such a way with him!" On they dash!--it's none of my business, as Mischief remarks, when she has winked and blinked a reputation down. I don't pretend to be more charitable than my betters. Now those of us who believe that hoofs should not always be a substitute for human feet, stroll forth for our evening walk. We are not afraid of dew or dust, and we get miles away before we remember that we have to return. We sit on the fences, and dangle our boots, and watch the mountain shadows and the soft white mist creeping over the valleys, and we listen to the whip-poor-will. Or we boldly walk up the avenue, under the dense shade of the trees, to the lovely lawn in front of that big house, and admire the gardener's skill as displayed in the vivid patches of bloom nestled in the grass. Or we cross the meadow--to the tell-tale willows, behind which the river hides, and listen to its peaceful flow; and say for the thousandth time, that we _will_ own "a place" in the country; but, nevertheless, it is ten to one, that next summer will find us staring at the "place" of somebody else, and allowing him the privilege of keeping it in order for us, and settling the bills for the same. Alas! that the tools with which scribblers work can be sharpened and kept from rusting only on that grindstone--_the city_.

_SUNDAY IN THE VILLAGE._

I am New England born. I want a hymn and a prayer on Sunday. Not that I do not like both, on other days; but I am always homesick without them on Sunday. I want them _in church_, too. I said I wanted a hymn and a prayer. I want a sermon, too; but, alas! I am so often disappointed _there_, and I so dread being disappointed, that I generally take a seat near the door, where I can leave at the precise point when I feel happy, and the sermon begins.

This is naughty, I know, but as I have gone into the confessional, I will make a clean "_shrive_" of it. I want _what_ I want so much, and the lack of it spoils my Sunday. I want to know _how to live_; and the Rev. ---- only tells me that I've "got to die." I want to know how to manage with _to-day_; and the Rev. ---- only speculates about what may or what may not be in eternity. I want to be soothed, and helped, and propped, and comforted; and the Rev. ---- tries to scare me with an "angry God," and a "sure damnation." I want earnestness in the pulpit; and instead, I find the Rev. ---- drawling lazily, "And the LUD GED said unto Adam." I want to know what the Rev. ---- is talking about; instead--half of the time, I am convinced--he don't even know that himself.

Perhaps these reasons may be some excuse for my dodging the "sermon" occasionally; if not, I plead guilty, and only ask you to acquit me of intentional irreverence. It still remains that who else soever can do without their Sunday, it is not I--Fanny.

But that's not what I meant to speak about, only that you will insist on the "prelude" in church. I _meant_ to tell you that the Sunday before I left New York, I had a genuine Sunday--one of _my_ Sundays; when, on entering the church of the Rev. Dr. Hall, I did not exchange the sweet song of birds, the vivid green of the trees, or the blue of the fair skies, for sulphureous terrors. Since I heard Dr. Payson, of Portland, when he reached out pleading hands to win wayward feet into the path of life, I have never been so entirely satisfied with the delivery of the Master's message. Dr. Hall has the same dignity; the same pleading earnestness; the same deep, rich voice; the same appreciative way of reading the hymns; the same _heart_-tone in every syllable. With him it is no performance. No person present could fail to feel that he had come there that morning as a fond parent would go forth, full of tender love, and yearning for the child who had strayed from home. There was no narrowness, no bigotry, no uncharitable denunciation; and, at the same time, no blinking of the truth--and the _whole_ truth. It was the lovely spirit of the Crucified: "Father, forgive them: they know not what they do."

_I_ had a full meal; and if you could have gone away unsatisfied, I am sorry for you. It must be that you never had a heart-wrench; that you never reached out imploring hands in the darkness, only to grasp the empty air. It must be that the earth never opened at your feet, and swallowed up your dear ones. It must be that you never--with a sincere desire to do right, by yourself, and by others--found yourself choking with distressful tears, that each day's sun should go down with so poor a record. Oh, you never could have felt thus, or you could not have gone away from the sound of Dr. Hall's voice, and said, there was nothing there for me. At least I think you would have admired, as I did, his noble frankness in telling "church-members" that he did not blame outsiders for doubting their Christianity, when they were so swift to pronounce judgment on those who differed from them in opinion. "This is bigotry," said he; "this is fanaticism--it is not Christianity. Man's conscience was not given him for this--it was given him to scrutinize his own shortcomings." This pleased me, in contrast with the opinion held by many "Christians," that the faults of such should never be spoken of, "for the possible harm to the cause."

Now, in conclusion, I would say to Dr. Hall's church, that to allow a clergyman like him to preach in a place so badly ventilated as was that church the morning I was present, is a crime. Let them show their regard for him, while thronging there to hear him, by not killing him by inches; he is too tall a man to die in that way.

* * * * *

WHAT DIFFERENCE CAN IT MAKE WHAT I DO OR SAY?--Now, there is not a man or woman living, nor ever has been, to whom it "makes no difference." If you have neither father, mother, brother, sister, child, husband, or wife, in the wide world, still there is some neighbor, some companion, whose eye, fixed upon you, is moved, perhaps unknown to themselves, for good or for evil. You slip an arm through theirs, in the crowded thoroughfare, or lay a friendly hand on their shoulder, and, in a leisure moment, saunter along together. _Where?_ It was _you_ who decided _where_. It is on you that the responsibility falls, perhaps, of that friend's _first_ downward step. Never say, it "makes no difference what I do." It makes a difference to _yourself_, even were it true that it did to no one else.

They who have passed many milestones on the journey of life, with their faces toward the Celestial City, do not stop to ask those who pass them on the road, of their creeds or nationalities. They see only the brother, or sister, to whom the helping hand and sympathizing word in time may be life or death for this world and the next. This is the true Christ-spirit.

_SICK IN THE VILLAGE._

I have been sick; safe under the coverlet for seven or eight days at least. I mention what may be to you but a very ordinary experience, because I am really quite humiliated: first, that such an unusual thing should have occurred to me; and secondly, that it should have been the undeserved penalty of great amiability on my part. It happened lately that, on a certain public occasion, a seat was politely assigned me near the orator of the hour, and, unfortunately, also near an open window, through which came directly upon my throat a blast of chill air. I felt it clutch me, but I said to myself, I wont make a disturbance leaving. Hence the necessity of a doctor, and a total cessation of speech, and a big bunch, the size of an egg, on a throat which were better without it. The next time I am polite, you may tell me of it! I am out now, to be sure, under the trees again, but I can't walk with any spring or unction. I can't eat with any appetite. I can't ride without being sensible of every inequality in the road. I hate a bed so that I can scarce bring my mind to get into one at night, and yet I am, as the expression goes, "_dead tired_" all the time. I tell you all this, particularly now, however, because I have received a stack of letters, during this period, which I must take a little time to answer, and which correspondents might otherwise suppose were never received, or had been slighted. But, oh! how beautiful look the green fields to me, now, and how welcome the fresh air! Still, don't come to Stockbridge _to be sick_. It is heaven for well people, and kind friends who dwell here are heavenly in kind deeds, at such and all other times.

This is what ails Stockbridge. It is occupied, mainly, by rich people, who come here only for their summer sojourn. Most of the houses here are quite closed in winter; therefore, you see that they are all consumers: _producers_ are the exceptions. If you have fruit or squashes in your own garden, thank the sun and the Lord for the same. If you don't own a garden, and don't want to tire out the generosity of your friends; in short, if you are a sick pilgrim at a hotel, then more's the pity. _Then_ you'll lie on your pillow and dream of big peaches, and luscious pears, and plums, in your native hunting-ground, the New York markets. You'll think of the stores in Broadway, where huge bunches of grapes, in purple bloom, lie clustering. Maybe at the butcher's, near your very door in New York, is the "sweet-bread," which, if cooked at the right moment, and in the right way, might tempt your flagging appetite. Heaven's blessings on the good Samaritans who brought _me_ nice tit-bits; but one don't want to be a pauper too long, lest the patience of benevolence might give out.

While I lay sick, I must say a peach-tree seemed more desirable than the grandest elm; and a pear-tree preferable to ever so magnificent a maple or chestnut. Grape-vines, also, I thought finer than woodbine, ivy, or clematis; in short--were my state of invalidism to continue, I am confident I should become a confirmed utilitarian.

If this bit of experience of mine is any comfort to the forced sojourner in the hot city, let him hug it to heart. I have had sunsets here like the glory of "the New Jerusalem." I've wandered under these trees and been driven over these lovely roads, till my eyes were moist with happiness I could not voice. I have heard such kindly tones, and seen such loving faces, and been so hospitably entreated here, that it would take more physic than was involved in those bed-ridden days of pain and unrest to give me a grudge against lovely, mountain-girdled Stockbridge.

_MEN AND THEIR CLOTHES._

The female fashions of to-day are absurd enough; but if anything more absurd than a man's "stove-pipe hat" was ever invented, I would like to see it. Mark its victims, when they remove it from their heads--which they seldom do, the gods know why, unless they are getting into bed; see the red rim across their foreheads, produced by its unwieldy weight, and unnecessary inches up in the air; see them occasionally in the street, giving it a cock backwards, when nobody but apple-women are looking, to observe how quickly a gentleman, by that action, may be made into a rowdy; then see them apply their handkerchiefs to their foreheads, to cool off the heat and the pain, and then with a stoicism worthy of one of Fox's martyrs, replace it, and bear the long agony till they get home. Then what garment that ever woman wore, is more ridiculous than a man's shirt, whether buttoning before or buttoning behind, or disfigured with puerile "studs;" whether the stiff collar stands up like a picket on guard, or lays over, with a necktie to tie it suffocatingly over the jugular vein.

Then mark that abomination--a swallow-tailed coat. Heavens! how ugly the handsomest man may look in it! and woe for the plain men, when they intensify their plainness with it!

Then see the knock-kneed and the crooked-legged advertising their deformity in tight pantaloons; and short, fat, barrel men wearing little boys' cloth caps on their heads! Ah, for every female goose that Fashion makes, I will find you a male mate, even to the wearing of tight corsets!

But, my friends, on one point there's a difference. "When a fashionable lady engages a female servant, she stipulates that she shall wear a cap on her head, and calico on her back, to mark the difference between herself and that servant--without which, I suppose, it would not often be recognizable." When her _husband_ gives a dinner, the male waiters are dressed exactly like himself--in festal white neckties, white gloves, and hideous swallow-tailed coats.

How is this? It must be that the male creature is very secure of his position, socially, mentally, morally, and physically, to permit such presumption--nay, to demand it. Can any philosopher explain to me this mystery? I was "struck 'midships" with the idea at a festal gathering not long since; and turning to my male guide, philosopher, and friend, asked what it meant. His irritating answer to this most proper and natural question was, "Fanny, don't be silly."

I reiterate my remark that men's dress is to the full as absurd in its way as women's, and I am only reconciled to the idea that a man was intended for a human being when I see an athlete of a gymnast, of glorious chest and calves, and splendid muscular arms, skimming the air as gracefully as a bird, and as poetically; then I know how civilization has ruined him! I know, that man if he jumped, and ran, and wrestled, and walked, instead of sitting stupidly in a chair in the house, or creeping into an omnibus when out of it, and smoking and going to sleep in the intervals, would not be obliged to creep into these ugly tailor's padded fashions to hide his deficiencies, but could wear what he chose, knowing that the beautiful outlines of his form would glorify any decent vestment.

I walked several blocks out of my way behind a man, the other day, who positively "stepped off." What a chest he had! what a splendid poise of the head! what a free, jubilant swing of the arm! I hope he will come to New York again some day, for I'm sure he was a stranger to it, for he neither stopped anywhere to take a drink, buy a cigar, nor did he hail an omnibus!

Magnificent giant! I wonder what was his name, and had he a mother. If not--well, it was a pity he shouldn't have.

I wonder what _are_ "good manners"? The question occurred to me the other evening in a place of public amusement. I was one of a dozen or so of ladies, wedged in a row of the usual narrow seats. At every pause in the performance, three _gentlemen_ stepped over the laps of the ladies in that seat, carrying off in their exit, or knocking upon the floor, opera-glasses, fans, scarfs, handkerchiefs, and, almost, the ladies themselves; returning each time wiping their lips, and introducing with them a strong odious smell of tobacco. I respectfully submit to any _real_ gentleman who reads this article, if that is "good manners."

Of course, I know it would be better if all seats at such places could be so arranged that _gentlemen_ need not clean their boots on ladies' laps in order to pass out. But also it would be well if gentlemen took all the sustenance in the way of wine which they needed before starting from home; and if they _could_ also bring their godlike minds, to defer smoking till they could annoy only the one lady, whom they have a legal right to annoy, it would add to the general comfort, as well as their _public_ reputation for gallantry and politeness. Men generally object to going out evenings, "because they are so tired." Why, then, they never embrace the opportunity to sit still when they get there, is an inconsistency which we must place unsolved, on the shelf already so well labelled with them. I might suggest also, that if they will persist in cleaning their boots on our laps, in order to get out these narrow sets of seats, and if they will carry off in their exit our gloves and fans and opera-glasses, and if they will keep on repeating this little pastime all the evening, to say nothing of occasionally crushing our feet out of all shape, I would venture to suggest that they should mitigate the suffering by saying, occasionally, "I beg pardon," or, "Pray excuse me," or by some such little deference acknowledge the infinite bore of their presence.

Failing in this, I propose that each _gentleman_, on his return, should bring in his hand a peace-offering to the ladies in the seat, of a glass of lemonade and a bit of cake. Why shouldn't _we_ be thirsty too? Mr. Beecher says a woman has a right to--no, I believe he _didn't_ say that, but he ought to have done so; and if he didn't, "fair play is a jewel."

Mr. Smith exclaims, on reading this, "Horrible woman!" because, though a handsome man, he sees himself looking selfish and ugly in the glass I hold up to him. Now, Mr. Smith wouldn't say that, if he should sit down beside me and let me talk to him five minutes. Not he! You see I have him at a great disadvantage, away off at the other end of the city or over to Brooklyn. I could say the very same things to him I have just said on paper, sitting here on my sofa beside me, and that man would go on lying, as men will, to other men's wives' faces, and be _so_ polite and smiling, that his own wife never would know him, if she happened in; and he'd tell me that "what I said was all true, and that men _were_ selfish animals," meaning Tom Jones and Sam Jenkins, and every other man but just himself. Don't I know them?

_NOTES FROM PLYMOUTH ROCK._

How I ever lived so many years in Boston without coming to see Plymouth, is one of the sins of omission for which I am at this present finding doing my best to atone. I trust all of you who are equally guilty, will come as soon as may be to breathe the fine Newport air of the place, and take time to visit its interesting coast, its numerous ponds, its lovely drives through odorous woods, and all the hallowed spots which ought to be dear to the heart of every true American. Don't go to Paris or London till you have been to Plymouth. It were well to "see Niagara" first; but it were better to have gone with me to the "Record Office" this morning, and seen the yellow manuscripts, covered thickly with the small German text-looking handwriting of our Pilgrim Fathers; setting forth, for instance, "the shares they severally held in a cow," in the simple, honest, straightforward manner of the time--one signed by "Myles Standish," who, it seems, having the primitive ambition to own an _entire_ cow, kept buying up the shares of the rest as speedily as his means allowed. I thought of Mr. Bonner's stables, and the thousands of dollars his horses represented, and wondered how he dared to say his catechism! Then I saw their veritable "Charter," kept in a dark cupboard, with a silken curtain drawn across the precious signatures, lest the unscrupulous sunlight, invading this "Holy of Holies," should snatch them from posterity. And then and there was exploded for me the theory that handwriting is indicative of character. Certainly those effeminate, small, beautiful letters gave no sign or token of the moral strength, the rugged persistence of purpose, of the Pilgrim Fathers. Not one modern young lady in a hundred could write so minute and beautiful a hand. They must have had good eyesight in those days, when gas and furnaces were not. Sharp men they were; disguising the very graves of the first little Mayflower band, lest the Indians should take advantage of the reduction of their numbers. The very house I am in bears the name of the first Indian who visited them,--"Samoset." Whether the fair and tender-hearted Rose Standish quailed before the savage owner of this most musical name, I have not learned. I do not hesitate to say, that _I_ should have made for the bushes on his first appearance. It is curious, in walking the streets of Plymouth, to hear the little children calling to each other, in their play, and using the old familiar Mayflower names of hundreds of years ago.