A HAPPY FAMILY.
CHAPTER I.
"If solid happiness we prize, Within our breast this jewel lies.
* * * * *
From our own selves our joys must flow, And peace begins at home."
COTTON.
The family--our family, not the Happy Family--consisted of me and mybrothers and sisters. I have a father and mother, of course.
I am the eldest, as I remind my brothers; and of the more worthygender, which my sisters sometimes forget. Though we live in thevillage, my father is a gentleman, as I shall be when I am grown up. Ihave told the village boys so more than once. One feels mean inboasting that one is better born than they are; but if I did not tellthem, I am not sure that they would always know.
Our house is old, and we have a ghost--the ghost of mygreat-great-great-great-great-aunt.
She "crossed her father's will," nurse says, and he threatened to flogher with his dog-whip, and she ran away, and was never heard of more.He would not let the pond be dragged, but he never went near it again;and the villagers do not like to go near it now. They say you may meether there, after sunset, flying along the path among the trees, withher hair half down, and a knot of ribbon fluttering from it, andparted lips, and terror in her eyes.
The men of our family (my father's family, my mother is Irish) havealways had strong wills. I have a strong will myself.
People say I am like the picture of my great-grandfather (thegreat-great-great-nephew of the ghost). He must have been a wonderfulold gentleman by all accounts. Sometimes nurse says to us, "Have yourown way, and you'll live the longer," and it always makes me think ofgreat-grandfather, who had so much of his own way, and lived to benearly a hundred.
I remember my father telling us how his sisters had to visit their oldgranny for months at a time, and how he shut the shutters at threeo'clock on summer afternoons, and made them play dummy whist by candlelight.
"Didn't you and your brothers go?" asked Uncle Patrick, across thedinner-table. My father laughed.
"Not we! My mother got us there once--but never again."
"And did your sisters like it?"
"Like it? They used to cry their hearts out. I really believe itkilled poor Jane. She was consumptive and chilly, but always cravingfor fresh air; and granny never would have open windows, for fear ofdraughts on his bald head; and yet the girls had no fires in theirroom, because young people shouldn't be pampered."
"And ye never-r offer-r-ed--neither of ye--to go in the stead ofthem?"
When Uncle Patrick rolls his R's in a discussion, my mother becomesnervous.
"One can't expect boys to consider things," she said. "Boys will beboys, you know."
"And what would you have 'em be?" said my father. Uncle Patrick turnedto my mother.
"Too true, Geraldine. Ye don't expect it. Worse luck! I assure ye, I'dbe aghast at the brutes we men can be, if I wasn't more amazed thatwe're as good as we are, when the best and gentlest of your sex--themoulders of our childhood, the desire of our manhood--demand so littlefor all that you alone can give. There were conceivable uses in womenpreferring the biggest brutes of barbarous times, but it's not so now;and boys will be civilised boys, and men will be civilised men, sweetsister, when you _do_ expect it, and when your grace and favours arethe rewards of nobleness, and not the easy prize of selfishness andsavagery."
My father spoke fairly.
"There's some truth in what you say, Pat."
"And small grace in my saying it. Forgive me, John."
That's the way Uncle Patrick flares up and cools down, like a strawbonfire. But my father makes allowances for him; first, because he isan Irishman, and, secondly, because he's a cripple.
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I love my mother dearly, and I can do anything I like with her. Ialways could. When I was a baby, I would not go to sleep unless shewalked about with me, so (though walking was bad for her) I got my ownway, and had it afterwards.
With one exception. She would never tell me about my godfather. Iasked once, and she was so distressed that I was glad to promise neverto speak of him again. But I only thought of him the more, though allI knew about him was his portrait--such a fine fellow--and that hehad the same swaggering, ridiculous name as mine.
How my father allowed me to be christened Bayard I cannot imagine. ButI was rather proud of it at one time--in the days when I wore longcurls, and was so accustomed to hearing myself called "a perfectpicture," and to having my little sayings quoted by my mother and herfriends, that it made me miserable if grown-up people took the libertyof attending to anything but me. I remember wriggling myself off mymother's knee when I wanted change, and how she gave me her watch tokeep me quiet, and stroked my curls, and called me her fair-hairedknight, and her little Bayard; though, remembering also, howlingeringly I used just not to do her bidding, ate the sugar when shewasn't looking, tried to bawl myself into fits, kicked thenurse-girl's shins, and dared not go upstairs by myself after dark--Imust confess that a young chimpanzee would have as good claims as Ihad to represent that model of self-conquest and true chivalry, "theKnight without fear and without reproach."
However, the vanity of it did not last long. I wonder if thatgrand-faced godfather of mine suffered as I suffered when he went toschool and said his name was Bayard? I owe a day in harvest to theyoung wag who turned it into Backyard. I gave in my name as Backyardto every subsequent inquirer, and Backyard I modestly remained.
Melchior's Dream and Other Tales Page 15
