Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Then Pussy had brought her to be acquainted with all the birds, so that she knew every one just as well as she used to know her old calling acquaintance on Fifth Avenue. There was frisky Master Catbird, who sang like every other bird in the woods in turn, — five minutes like this one, and the next five minutes like that one, — and ended by laughing at them all, with as plain a laugh as ever a bird could make. And there were the bobolinks, with the white spots on their black wings, that fluttered and said, “Chack, chack, chack!” as if they didn’t know how to sing a word, and then all of a sudden broke out into a perfect bird babble of “Chee-chees” and “Twitter-twitters,” and said, “O limph, O limph, O limp-e-te! sweetmeats, sweetmeats!” and, “Veni si-no pi-le-cheer-ene!”

  And then, too, there was the shy white-throated finch, that never sings unless it is perfectly sure of being all alone by itself in the deepest, shadiest little closet of an old pine-tree or a thick-leaved maple.

  Pussy had taught Emily how to creep round among the bushes, holding her breath, and moving in perfect silence, till at last they would get directly under the tree where the shy little beauty was sitting; and then they would see her dress herself, and plume her feathers, and pour forth just six clear, measured musical notes, — a little plaintive, but so sweet that one who heard her once would want to hear again.

  Pussy used to insist that the bird uttered just six words in the tune of one of her Sunday-school hymns,—” No war nor battle sound.” By close listening, you might after a time be quite sure that the bird sung exactly these words in her green, still retirement.

  Then there were a whole crowd more of meadow-larks, and finches, and yellow-birds, that used to sit on thistle-tops, and sing, and pick out the downy thistle-seeds, and snap them up, and send the little silvery plumes flying like fairy feathers through the summer air.

  Emily used to suppose that there were no sights to look at in the country, where there was no theatre, and no opera, and no museum; but she soon found that she could see, every day, out in a common pasture-lot, things more beautiful and curious than any which could be gotten up to entertain people in the city.

  On Sundays they used to ride two good miles over hill and dale to the village church, and there Pussy had her Sunday-school class of nice rosy boys and girls, whom she seemed so fond of, and who were always so glad to see her.

  Many times the thought occurred to Emily, “How happy this girl is! Not a day of her life passes when she does not feel that she is bringing some good and useful thing to pass, feeling her own powers, and brightening the life of every one around her by the use of them. And I,” Emily thought, “have lived all my life like some broken-winged bird or sick chicken, just to be taken care of, — always to receive, and never to give; always to be waited on, and never to wait on anybody.”

  With health and strength and cheerfulness came a sort of consciousness of power, and a scorn of doing nothing, in this young girl’s mind. “Because I am rich, is that any reason why I should be lazy,” she thought to herself, “and let my body and mind absolutely die out from sheer laziness? If I am not obliged to work to support myself, as Pussy is, still, ought I not to work for others, as she does? If I can afford to have all my clothes made, is that any reason why I should not learn to cut and fit and sew so as to help those who have not money) Besides,” thought the sensible Miss Emily, “my papa may lose his money, and become poor. Now being poor is no evil to Pussy; she contrives to be just as happy, to look pretty, to dress well and neatly, and to make her home charming and agreeable, — all by using her own faculties to the utmost, instead of depending on others, and being a drag and a burden on them. I will try and do so too. To be sure it is late in the day for me, I have indulged laziness so long, — and I am lazy, that’s a fact. But then” — And then Emily went on thinking over the explanation that she had heard Pussy give to her Sunday-school class, on the Sunday before, of the parable of the talents, and the uses different people made of them. “These talents,” she thought, “are all our advantages for doing good; and I have had so many! I am like the man who just digged in the earth and buried his Lord’s money in darkness; I have not done anything with my talents; I have not cultivated my mind, though I have had every advantage for it; I have not even perfectly acquired any accomplishment. I have not done anybody any good, and I have not even been happy myself. My talent has not only not been increased, but it has grown less; for I have lost my health, and come almost to the grave by foolish ways of dressing, by sitting up late nights, and living generally without any sensible worthy object. And now, if my Lord should come to reckon with me, what could I say about the use I have made of my talents I”

  This was more serious thinking than our Miss Emily had ever done before, and it ended in a humble, hearty prayer to her Saviour to enable her for the future to lead a better life; and then she began to study as earnestly to learn how to do everything about a house as if she were in very deed a poor girl, and needed to know. She insisted on taking the care of her own room, and early in the morning you might have heard her stepping about her apartment in a thrifty way, throwing open her window, and beating up her pillows and bolster, and putting them to air. Then she would insist on helping Pussy wash the breakfast things, and she would get her to teach every step of the way to make bread and biscuit and butter, and all nice things. “It does me good, it amuses me, it gives me my health, and it makes me good for something,” she said. “If ever I should have use for this knowledge, I shall be at no loss, and you don’t know how much happier I am than when I did nothing.”

  “Now, Pussy dear,” she used to add, “when I go back to New York this winter, you must come and visit me; for I cannot do without you.”

  “Oh!” Pussy would say, laughing, “you won’t like me in New York. I do very well in the country, among the sweet-fem bushes and the bobolinks, but I should be quite lost in one of your New York palaces.”

  “No, but you must come and show New Yorkers what a country girl can be. Why, Pussy, you are a great deal better educated than I am, even in things where I have had more advantages than you, just because you have had to struggle for them; you have really set your heart on them, and so have got them. Knowledge has just been rubbed on to me upon the outside, while you have opened your mind, and stretched out your arms to it, and taken it in with all your heart.”

  Emily would not be denied, and Pussy’s mother said that she ought to have some little holiday, she had always been such a good girl; and so it was arranged that she should go back to New York with Emily when she went.

  But Emily was in no hurry to go back, for, as autumn came on, and the long fine days grew cooler, she found that she could walk farther and farther, and spend more and more time in the open air. She had great fun in going chestnutting, out under the bright gold-colored chestnut trees, where the prickly burrs opened and showered down abundance of ripe, glossy nuts. Emily would sometimes come home long after dark, having spent a whole afternoon in searching and tossing about the golden leaves, and bearing her bag of chestnuts in triumph, — and so hungry that good brown bread and milk tasted like the most delicious luxury.

  Then there were walnuts, and butternuts, and wild forest grapes, and bright crimson barberries, all of which the young maidens went forth to seek, and in pursuit of which they garnered health and strength and happiness.

  “Why, Dr. Hardhack,” said Emily’s mother, “I don’t see as we shall ever get our Emily home again. I keep writing and writing, and still she says she isn’t ready; there is always something ahead.”

  “Let her alone, ma’am, let her alone,” said the Doctor. “Give Nature a chance more; you’ll all be tumbling on to her, and trying to undo all the good she’s getting, as soon as yon get her home; so let her stay as long as possible.”

  “Oh, Dr. Hardhack, you are so queer!”

  “Truth, ma’am!” said the Doctor. “You are perfectly longing to kill that child; it’s all you can do to allow her a chance to breathe. But I insist u
pon it that she shall keep away from you as long as she has a mind to.”

  “Did you ever see such a queer old dear as Dr. Hardhack f” said Emily’s mother. “He does say the oddest things!”

  So in the next chapter we shall tell you about Pussy’s adventures in New York.

  CHAPTER XV

  “WELL now, Dr. Hardhack, doesn’t our Emily look beautifully?” said Emily’s mother and grandmother and aunt, all in one breath.

  Emily had come home from her long abode in the country, and had brought her friend Pussy Willow with her; and they were sitting together now, a pair of about as rosy young females as one should wish to see of a summer day.

  Dr. Hardhack turned round, and glared through his spectacles at Emily. “Pretty fair,” he said; “pretty fair! A tolerable summer’s work, that!” — and he gave a pinch to Emily’s rosy cheek. “Firm fibre, that! real hard flesh, made of clover and morning dew, — none of your flabby, sidewalk, skinny construction.”

  “Well now, Doctor, we want you to tell us just what she may do, — just how much. I suppose you know, now she’s got into a city, she can’t dress exactly as she did up in the country.”

  “I see, I see,” said Dr. Hardhack; “I take at once.”

  “You see,” said Aunt Zarviah, “there isn’t a thing of all her clothes that she can wear, having been all summer in those loose sacks, you know. She’s sort o’ spread out, you see.”

  “I should think so,” said Dr. Hardhack. “Well, my advice is, that you begin gradually screwing her up; get her corsets ready, with plenty of whalebone and a good tough lace; but don’t begin too hard, — just tighten a little every day, and by and by she’ll get back to where all her things will fit her exactly.”

  “But, Doctor, won’t that injure her health!” said the Tnqipmn..

  “Of course it will, but I fancy she’ll stand it for one winter; it won’t quite kill her, and that’s all we doctors want. If it suits you all, it does me, I’m sure. What should I do for my bread and butter, if all the girls of good families kept on living as these two have been living this summer? I really couldn’t afford it, in a professional point of view.”

  “Well, I have something to say on this point,” said Emily. “I wouldn’t lose my health again for anything that can be named.”

  “Oh, pooh, pooh! I’ve heard a deal of talk of this sort before now. When patients are first up from a sickness, how prudent they mean to be!

  ‘When the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be, —

  When the Devil got well, the Devil a monk was he.’”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” said Miss Emily; “but I think that poetry doesn’t apply to me, if you please. I hope I’m not of that family.”

  “Well, — but seriously, Doctor, you must tell us just how much it will do for Emily to do,” said the mamma. “One doesn’t want to give up the world entirely, and yet one doesn’t want to lose one’s health.”

  “I see,” said the Doctor; “I appreciate the case entirely. Well, let her begin with the opera twice a week, and one German, kept up till daylight. In one week she will feel stronger than ever she did, and declare that nothing hurts her; then she can take two Germans, and then three, and so on. Fact is,” said the Doctor, “of all the devices of modern society, none is so good for the medical practice as these Germans; my best cases are made out of ‘em; they unite all the requisites for forming first-rate patients that keep on our hands for months and years, and are as good as an annuity to us. I’m not a fool, madam. I must look ahead for my bread and butter next spring, you see.”

  “But, Doctor, I’m not going to Germans at all,” said Emily, stoutly. “I know now what life is, and what health is worth, and I’m not going to waste it in that way. Besides, I’m going to try to live for something better.”

  “Live for something better!” said the Doctor. “What sort of talk is that for a young lady in the first New York society? What is there to live for better? I thought of it the other night when I was at a confirmation at Grace Church, and Baw a whole bevy of pretty creatures, who all were engaging to ‘fight manfully under Christ’s banner,’ and thought where they would be before spring. Whirling round all night in a low-necked dress is the kind of fighting they do; and then I’m called in as hospital surgeon to the dear disciples when they are carried off the field exhausted. I know all about it. You can’t, of course, live for anything better. You couldn’t, for the world, be called singular, and be thought to have odd notions, — could you? That would be too horrible.

  “Now I knew a rich New York girl once who took to bad courses. She would go round visiting the poor, she would sit up with sick people, and there was no end to the remarks made about her. People clearly saw how wicked it was of her to risk her health in that way, — how late hours and bad air and fatigue would certainly undermine her health, — and she was quite cast out of the synagogue. You mustn’t breathe bad air or over-exert yourself, unless you do so from a purely selfish motive; then it’s all right and proper, — this is our New York gospel.”

  Pussy Willow’s blue eyes were open very wide on the Doctor as he spoke, and there was a laugh in them, though she did not laugh otherwise. The Dofctor caught the expression, and shook his cane at her.

  “Oh, you needn’t sit there looking mischievous, miss. What do you know of life? You ‘re nothing but a country girl, and you know no more of it than the bobolinks and chip-squirrels do. You’ll soon learn to be ashamed of your roses, and to think it’s pretty to have bad health. I’ll bet a copper that you’ll begin a course of corsets in a fortnight, and by spring we shall send you back to your milk-pails as white and withered as Miss Emily there. It’s astonishing how fast we can run a girl down, taking one thing with another, — the corsets, and the hot rooms with plenty of gas escaping into them from leaky tubes, and then operas and Germans for every night in the week. Of course it’s a charity to give you a good stiff dose of it; it’s hospitality, you see.”

  “Now, Doctor Hardhack, you dreadful man,” said Emily, “you must stop this talk. I brought Fussy down here on purpose to have somebody to help me to live better than I have lived. We shall just take a peep or two at New York sights, but we are not going into the gay world.”

  “Ta, ta, ta! don’t tell me,” said the Doctor, shaking his cane playfully at her; “you won’t be so unfair as to cut me in that way. I shall hear of you yet, — you’ll see;” and so the Doctor departed.

  “What a droll man he is!” said Pussy.

  “It’s just his way,” said Emily’s mother; “he’s always running on in this strange way about everything. For my part, I never know half what he means.”

  “It is tolerably plain what he means,” said Emily. “You must do exactly contrary to what he tells you, — as I shall; so, aunty, don’t trouble yourself to try to alter my things, unless it be to let them all out, for I’m going to keep all the breathing-room I’ve got, whether I have a pretty waist or not. I’d rather have color in my cheeks, and a cheerful heart, than the smallest waist that ever was squeezed together.”

  “Such a pity one couldn’t have both!” said Aunt Zarviah. “Your cousin Jane was in here last week with her new bismarck silk, and it fits her so beautifully! Somebody said she looked as if she’d been melted and poured into it; there wasn’t a crease or a wrinkle! It did look lovely!”

  “Well, Aunt Zarviah, I must try some other way of looking lovely. Maybe, if I am always gay and happy, and in good spirits, and have a fresh bright face, it may make up for not looking as if I had been melted and poured into my clothes.”

  To do Emily justice, she showed a good deal of spirit in her New York life. She and Pussy agreed to continue together their course of reading and study for at least two hours a day; then they both took classes in a mission Sunday school, which was held in the Church of the Good Shepherd, and they took up their work in real good earnest.

  “Now,” said Emily, “I am not going to give my class just the odds and ends and parings of strength
which I have left after I have spent almost all in amusing myself; but I mean to do just the other way, and spend the strength left from really useful things in amusing myself.”

  The girls kept a list of their classes, and used regularly every week to visit the families from which the children came. In the course of these visits they found much else to do. They saw much of the life of the poor; they saw paths daily opening before them in which the outlay of a little time and a little money enabled them to help some poor struggling family to keep up a respectable standing; they learned the real worth of both time and money; and the long walks they took in all weathers in the open air kept up their strength and vigor. They went occasionally of an evening to some of the best sights in New York, and they saw what was really worth seeing; but they did not make a winter’s work of rushing from one amusement to another.

  On the whole, the two girls, in spite of Doctor Hardhack, proved that a temperate, sober, healthy, useful life might be led even in the higher circles of New York.

  Dr. Hardhack used to pretend to fly into a passion when he saw them, — shook his stick at them wrathfully, exclaiming, “What is to become of me if you go on so?” and threatening to denounce them. “It’s a conspiracy against our bread and butter, the way these girls go on,” he said. “I sha’n’t have a shadow of a case in Miss Emily, and I’m an abused man.”

  So passed a pleasant winter, when one morning all New York waked up in arms. Emily’s father brought home the newspaper, — there was a war; Emily’s brother came rushing in all out of breath,—”The New York Seventh has got to be off in a twinkling. Girls, good-by.”

  You remember, my little readers, those first days of the last war. What a stir and commotion there was everywhere through all the families in the country! Fathers and brothers and lovers and husbands were marching off, and the women left at home were so wishing and longing to be able to do anything to help them!