"Do you think it's true, Samuel?"

"Waael, Huldy,—I du."

"Tourtelot! finish your flip, and go to bed; it's past ten."

And the Deacon went.

XIV

Toward the latter end of the winter there arrived at the parsonage the new mistress,—in the person of Miss Eliza Johns, the elder sister of the incumbent, and a spinster of the ripe age of three-and-thirty. For the last twelve years she had maintained a lonely, but matronly, command of the old homestead of the late Major Johns, in the town of Canterbury. She was intensely proud of the memory of her father, and of his father before him,—every inch a Johns. No light cause could have provoked her to a sacrifice of the name; and of weightier causes she had been spared the trial. The marriage of her brother had always been more or less a source of mortification to her. The Handbys, though excellent plain people, were of no particular distinction. Rachel had a pretty face, with which Benjamin had grown suddenly demented. That source of mortification and of disturbed intimacy was now buried in the grave. Benjamin had won a reputation for dignity and ability which was immensely gratifying to her. She had assured him of it again and again in her occasional letters. The success of his Election Sermon had been an event of the greatest interest to her, which she had expressed in an epistle of three pages, with every comma in its place, and full of gratulations. Her commas were always in place; so were her stops of all kinds: her precision was something marvellous. This precision had enabled her to manage the little property which had been left her in such a way as to maintain always about her establishment an air of well-ordered thrift. She concealed adroitly all the shifts—if there were any—by which she avoided the reproach of seeming poor.

In person she was not unlike her father, the Major,—tall, erect, with a dignified bearing, and so trim a figure, and so elastic a step even at her years, as would have provoked an inquisitive follower to catch sight of the face. This was by no means attractive. Her features were thin, her nose unduly prominent; and both eye and mouth, though well formed, carried about them a kind of hard positiveness that would have challenged respect, perhaps, but no warmer feeling. Two little curls were flattened upon either temple; and her neck-tie, dress, gloves, hat, were always most neatly arranged, and ordered with the same precision that governed all her action. In the town of Canterbury she was an institution. Her charities and all her religious observances were methodical, and never omitted. Her whole life, indeed, was a discipline. Without any great love for children, she still had her Bible-class; and it was rare that the weather or any other cause forbade attendance upon its duties. Nor was there one of the little ones who listened to that clear, sharp, metallic voice of hers but stood in awe of her; not one that could say she was unkind; not one who had ever bestowed a childish gift upon her,—such little gifts as children love to heap on those who have found the way to their hearts.

Sentiment had never been effusive in her; and it was now limited to quick sparkles, that sometimes flashed into a page of her reading. As regarded the serious question of marriage, implying a home, position, the married dignities, it had rarely disturbed her; and now her imaginative forecast did not grapple it with any vigor or longing. If, indeed, it had been possible that a man of high standing, character, cultivation,—equal, in short, to the Johnses in every way,—should woo her with pertinacity, she might have been disposed to yield a dignified assent, but not unless he could be made to understand and adequately appreciate the immense favor she was conferring. In short, the suitor who could abide and admit her exalted pretensions, and submit to them, would most infallibly be one of a character and temper so far inferior to her own that she would scorn him from the outset. This dilemma, imposed by the rigidity of her smaller dignities, that were never mastered or overshadowed either by her sentiment or her passion, not only involved a life of celibacy, but was a constant justification of it, and made it eminently easy to be borne. There are not a few maiden ladies who are thus lightered over the shoals of a solitary existence by the buoyancy of their own intemperate vanities.

Miss Johns did not accept the invitation of her brother to undertake the charge of his household without due consideration. She by no means left out of view the contingency of his possible future marriage; but she trusted largely to her own influences in making it such a one, if inevitable, as should not be discreditable to the family name. And under such conditions she would retire with serene contentment to her own more private sphere of Canterbury,—or, if circumstances should demand, would accept the position of guest in the house of her brother. Nor did she leave out of view her influence in the training of the boy Reuben. She cherished her own hopes of moulding him to her will, and of making him a pride to the family.

There was of course prodigious excitement in the parsonage upon her arrival. Esther had done her best at all household appliances, whether of kitchen or chamber. The minister received her with his wonted quietude, and a brotherly kiss of salutation. Reuben gazed wonderingly at her, and was thinking dreamily if he should ever love her, while he felt the dreary rustle of her black silk dress swooping round as she stooped to embrace him. "I hope Master Reuben is a good boy," said she; "your Aunt Eliza loves all good boys."

He had nothing to say; but only looked back into that cold gray eye, as she lifted his chin with her gloved hand.

"Benjamin, there's a strong look of the Handbys; but it's your forehead. He's a little man, I hope," and she patted him on the head.

Still Reuben looked—wonderingly—at her shining silk dress, at her hat, at the little curls on either temple, at the guard-chain which hung from her neck with a glittering watch-key upon it, at the bright buckle in her belt, and most of all at the gray eye which seemed to look on him from far away. And with the same stare of wonderment, he followed her up and down throughout the house.

At night, Esther, who has a chamber near him, creeps in to say good-night to the lad, and asks,—

"Do you like her, Ruby, boy? Do you like your Aunt Eliza?"

"I d'n know," says Reuben, "She says she likes good boys; don't you like bad uns, Esther?"

"But you're not very bad," says Esther, whose orthodoxy does not forbid kindly praise.

"Didn't mamma like bad uns, Esther?"

"Dear heart!" and the good creature gives the boy a great hug; it could not have been warmer, if he had been her child.

The household speedily felt the presence of the new comer. Her precision, her method, her clear, sharp voice,—never raised in anger, never falling to tenderness,—ruled the establishment. Under all the cheeriness of the old management, there had been a sad lack of any economic system, by reason of which the minister was constantly overrunning his little stipend, and making awkward appeals from time to time to the Parish Committee for advances. A small legacy that had befallen the late Mrs. Johns, and which had gone to the purchase of the parsonage, had brought relief at a very perplexing crisis; but against all similar troubles Miss Johns set her face most resolutely. There was a daily examination of butchers' and grocers' accounts, that had been previously unknown to the household. The kitchen was placed under strict regimen, into the observance of which the good Esther slipped, not so much from love of it, as from total inability to cope with the magnetic authority of the new mistress. Nor was she harsh in her manner of command.

"Esther, my good woman, it will be best, I think, to have breakfast a little more promptly,—at half past six, we will say,—so that prayers may be over and the room free by eight; the minister, you know, must have his morning in his study undisturbed."

"Yes, Marm," says Esther; and she would as soon have thought of flying over the house-top in her short gown as of questioning the plan.

Again, the mistress says,—"Larkin, I think it would be well to take up those scattered bunches of lilies, and place them upon either side of the walk in the garden, so that the flowers may be all together."

"Yes, Marm," says Larkin.

And much as he had loved the little woman now sleeping in her grave, who had scattered flowers with an errant fancy, he would have thought it preposterous to object to an order so calmly spoken, so evidently intended for execution. There was something in the tone of Miss Johns in giving directions that drew off all moral power of objection as surely as a good metallic conductor would free an overcharged cloud of its electricity.

The parishioners were not slow to perceive that new order prevailed at the quiet parsonage. Curiosity, no less than the staid proprieties which governed the action of the chief inhabitants, had brought them early into contact with the new mistress. She received all with dignity and with an exactitude of deportment that charmed the precise ones and that awed the younger folks. The bustling Dame Tourtelot had come among the earliest, and her brief report was,—"Tourtelot, Miss Johns's as smart as a steel trap."

Nor was the spinster sister without a degree of cultivation which commended her to the more intellectual people of Ashfield. She was a reader of "Rokeby" and of Miss Austen's novels, of Josephus and of Rollin's "Ancient History." The Miss Hapgoods, who were the blue-stockings of the place, were charmed to have such an addition to the cultivated circle of the parish. To make the success of Miss Johns still more decided, she brought with her a certain knowledge of the conventionalisms of the city, by reason of her occasional visits to her sister Mabel, (now Mrs. Brindlock of Greenwich Street,) which to many excellent women gave larger assurance of her position and dignity than all besides. Before the first year of her advent had gone by, it was quite plain that she was to become one of the prominent directors of the female world of Ashfield.

Only in the parsonage itself did her influence find its most serious limitations,—and these in connection with the boy Reuben.

XV.

There is a deep emotional nature in the lad, which, by the time he has reached his eighth year,—Miss Eliza having now been in the position of mistress of the household a twelvemonth,—works itself off in explosive tempests of feeling, with which the prim spinster has but faint sympathy. No care could be more studious and complete than that with which she looks after the boy's wardrobe and the ordering of his little chamber; his supply of mittens, of stockings, and of underclothing is always of the most ample; nay, his caprices of the table are not wholly overlooked, and she hopes to win upon him by the dishes that are most toothsome; but, however grateful for the moment, his boyish affections can never make their way with any force or passionate flow through the stately proprieties of manner with which the spinster aunt is always hedged about.

He wanders away after school-hours to the home of the Elderkins,—Phil and he being sworn friends, and the good mother of Phil always having ready for him a beaming look of welcome and a tender word or two that somehow always find their way straight to his heart. He loiters with Larkin, too, by the great stable-yard of the inn, though it is forbidden ground. He breaks in upon the precise woman's rule of punctuality sadly; many a cold dish he eats sulkily,—she sitting bolt upright in her place at the table, looking down at him with glances which are every one a punishment. Other times he is straying in the orchard at the hour of some home-duty, and the active spinster goes to seek him, and not threateningly, but with an assured step and a firm grip upon the hand of the loiterer, which he knows not whether to count a favor or a punishment, (and she as much at a loss, so inextricably interwoven are her notions of duty and of kindness,) leads him homeward, plying him with stately precepts upon the sin of negligence, and with earnest story of the dreadful fate which is sure to overtake all bad boys who do not obey and keep "by the rules"; and she instances those poor lads who were eaten by the bears, of whom she has read to him the story in the Old Testament.

"Who was it they called 'bald-head,' Reuben? Elisha or Elijah?"

He, in no mood for reply, is sulkily beating off the daisies with his feet, as she drags him on; sometimes hanging back, with impotent, yet concealed struggle, which she—not deigning to notice—overcomes with even sharper step, and plies him the more closely with the dire results of badness,—has not finished her talk, indeed, when they reach the door-step and enter. There he, fuming now with that long struggle, fuming the more because he has concealed it, makes one violent discharge with a great frown on his little face, "You're an ugly old thing, and I don't like you one bit!"

Esther, good soul, within hearing of it, lifts her hands in apparent horror, but inwardly indulges in a wicked chuckle over the boy's spirit.

But the minister has heard him, too, and gravely summons the offender into his study.

"My son, Reuben, this is very wrong."

And the boy breaks into a sob at this stage, which is a great relief.

"My boy, you ought to love your aunt."

"Why ought I?" says he.

"Why? why? Don't you know she's very good to you, and takes excellent care of you, and hears you say your catechism every Saturday? You ought to love her."

"But I can't make myself love her, if I don't," says the boy.

"It is your duty to love her, Reuben; and we can all do our duty."

Even the staid clergyman enjoys the boy's discomfiture under so orthodox a proposition. Miss Johns, however, breaks in here, having overheard the latter part of the talk:—

"No, Benjamin, I wish no love that is given from a sense of duty. Reuben sha'n't be forced into loving his Aunt Eliza."

And there is a subdued tone in her speech which touches the boy. But he is not ready yet for surrender; he watches gravely her retirement, and for an hour shows a certain preoccupation at his play; then his piping voice is heard at the foot of the stairway,—

"Aunt Eliza! Are you there?"

"Yes, Master Reuben!"

Master! It cools somewhat his generous intent; but he is in for it; and he climbs the stair, sidles uneasily into the chamber where she sits at her work, stealing a swift, inquiring look into that gray eye of hers,—

"I say—Aunt Eliza—I'm sorry I said that—you know what."

And he looks up with a little of the old yearning,—the yearning he used to feel when another sat in that place.

"Ah, that is right, Master Reuben! I hope we shall be friends, now."

Another disturbed look at her,—remembering the time when he would have leaped into a mother's arms, after such struggle with his self-will, and found gladness. That is gone; no swift embrace, no tender hand toying with his hair, beguiling him from play. And he sidles out again, half shamefaced at a surrender that has wrought so little. Loitering, and playing with the balusters as he descends, the swift, keen voice comes after him,—

"Don't soil the paint, Reuben!"

"I haven't."

And the swift command and as swift retort put him in his old, wicked mood again, and he breaks out into a defiant whistle. (Over and over the spinster has told him it was improper to whistle in-doors.) Yet, with a lingering desire for sympathy, Reuben makes his way into his father's study; and the minister lays down his great folio,—it is Poole's "Annotations,"—and says,—

"Well, Reuben!"

"I told her I was sorry," says the boy; "but I don't believe she likes me much."

"Why, my son?"

"Because she called me Master, and said it was very proper."

"But doesn't that show an interest in you?"

"I don't know what interest is."

"It's love."

"Mamma never called me Master," said Reuben.

The grave minister bites his lip, beckons his boy to him,—"Here, my son!"—passes his arm around him, had almost drawn him to his heart,—

"There, there, Reuben; leave me now; I have my sermon to finish. I hope you won't be disrespectful to your aunt again. Shut the door."

And the minister goes back to his work, ironly honest, mastering his sensibilities, tearing great gaps in his heart, even as the anchorites once fretted their bodies with hair-cloth and scourgings.

In the summer of 1828 Mr. Johns was called upon to preach a special discourse at the Commencement exercises of the college from which he had received his degree; and so sterlingly orthodox was his sermon, at a crisis when some sister colleges were bolstering up certain new theological tenets which had a strong taint of heresy, that the old gentlemen who held rank as fellows of his college, in a burst of zeal, bestowed upon the worthy man the title of D. D. It was not an honor he had coveted; indeed, he coveted no human honors; yet this was more wisely given than most: his dignity, his sobriety, his rigid, complete adherence to all the accepted forms of religious belief made him a safe recipient of the title.

The spinster sister, with an ill-concealed pride, was most zealous in the bestowal of it; and before a month had passed, she had forced it into current use throughout the world of Ashfield.

Did a neglectful neighbor speak of the good health of "Mr. Johns," the mistress of the parsonage said,—"Why, yes, the Doctor is working very hard, it is true; but he is quite well; the Doctor is remarkably well."

Did a younger church-sister speak in praise of some late sermon of "the minister," Miss Eliza thanked her in a dignified way, and was sure "the Doctor" would be most happy to hear that his efforts were appreciated.

As for Larkin and Esther, who stumbled dismally over the new title, the spinster plied them urgently.

"Esther, my good woman, make the Doctor's tea very strong to-night."

"Larkin, the Doctor won't ride to-day; and mind, you must cut the wood for the Doctor's fire a little shorter."

Reuben only rebelled, with the mischief of a boy:—

"What for do you call papa Doctor? He don't carry saddle-bags."

To the quiet, staid man himself it was a wholly indifferent matter. In the solitude of his study, however, it recalled a neglected duty, and in so far seemed a blessing. By such paltry threads are the colors woven into our life! It recalled his friend Maverick and his jaunty prediction; and upon that came to him a recollection of the promise which he had made to Rachel, that he would write to Maverick.

So the minister wrote, telling his old friend what grief had stricken his house,—how his boy and he were left alone,—how the church, by favor of Providence, had grown under his preaching,—how his sister had come to be mistress of the parsonage,—how he had wrought the Master's work in fear and trembling; and after this came godly counsel for the exile.

He hoped that light had shone upon him, even in the "dark places" of infidel France,—that he was not alienated from the faith of his fathers,—that he did not make a mockery, as did those around him, of the holy institution of the Sabbath.

"My friend," he wrote, "God's word is true; God's laws are just; He will come some day in a chariot of fire. Neither moneys nor high places nor worldly honors nor pleasures can stay or avert the stroke of that sword of divine justice which will 'pierce even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow.' Let no siren voices beguile you. Without the gift of His grace who died that we might live, there is no hope for kings, none for you, none for me. I pray you consider this, my friend; for I speak as one commissioned of God."

Whether these words of the minister were met, after their transmission over seas, with a smile of derision,—with an empty gratitude, that said, "Good fellow!" and forgot their burden,—with a stitch of the heart, that made solemn pause and thoughtfulness, and short, in struggle against the habit of a life, we will not say; our story may not tell, perhaps. But to the mind of the parson it was clear that at some great coming day it would be known of all men where the seed that he had sown had fallen,—whether on good ground or in stony places.

The cross-ocean mails were slow in those days; and it was not until nearly four months after the transmission of the Doctor's letter—he having almost forgotten it—that Reuben came one day bounding in from the snow in mid-winter, his cheeks aflame with the keen, frosty air, his eyes dancing with boyish excitement:—

"A letter, papa! a letter!—and Mr. Troop" (it is the new postmaster under the Adams dynasty) "says it came all the way from Europe. It's got a funny post-mark."

The minister lays down his book,—takes the letter,—opens it,—reads,—paces up and down the study thoughtfully,—reads again, to the end.

"Reuben, call your Aunt Eliza."

There is matter in the letter that concerns her,—that in its issues will concern the boy,—that may possibly give a new color to the life of the parsonage, and a new direction to our story.



OUR FIRST CITIZEN.[A]

Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast; For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold: What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed, What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told.

Even as the bells, in one consenting chime, Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air, So joined all voices, in that mournful time, His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare.

What place is left for words of measured praise, Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen, Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase That shapes his image in the souls of men?

Yet while the echoes still repeat his name, While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse, Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse,—

Verse that, in ever-changing ebb and flow, Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush and rest, Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and slow, Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast.

This was a mind so rounded, so complete,— No partial gift of Nature in excess,— That, like a single stream where many meet, Each separate talent counted something less.

A little hillock, if it lonely stand, Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign; While the broad summit of the table-land Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain.

Servant of all his powers, that faithful slave, Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with his toils, To every ruder task his shoulder gave, And loaded every day with golden spoils.

Order, the law of Heaven, was throned supreme O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, thought; True as the dial's shadow to the beam, Each hour was equal to the charge it brought.

Too large his compass for the nicer skill That weighs the world of science grain by grain; All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will That claimed the franchise of his whole domain.

Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, Art, history, song,—what meanings lie in each Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre, And poured their mingling music through his speech.

Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days, Whose ravishing division held apart The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, Moved in all breasts the self-same human heart.

Subdued his accents, as of one who tries To press some care, some haunting sadness down; His smile half shadow; and to stranger eyes The kingly forehead wore an iron crown.

He was not armed to wrestle with the storm, To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form,— The rose of Academe,—the perfect flower!

Such was the stately scholar whom we knew In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm.

Ah, God forgive us! did we hold too cheap The heart we might have known, but would not see, And look to find the nation's friend asleep Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane?

That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death With all a hero's honors round his name; As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath, And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame.

So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise,— Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years,— "He who had lived the mark of all men's praise Died with the tribute of a nation's tears."

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Read at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan. 30, 1865.



NEEDLE AND GARDEN

THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A STRAWBERRY-GIRL.

WRITTEN BY HERSELF.

CHAPTER IV.

I quitted the sewing-school on a Friday evening, intending to put my things in order the following day: for Monday was my birthday,—I should then be eighteen, and was to go with my father and select a sewing-machine.

As before mentioned, he had usually employed all his spare time in winter, when there was no garden-work to be done, in making seines for the fishermen. These were very great affairs, being used in the shad-fishery on the Delaware; and as they were many hundred yards in length, they required a large gang of men to manage them. This employment naturally brought him an extensive acquaintance among the fishermen, by whom he was always invited to participate in their first hauling of the river, at the breaking up of winter. As he was quite as fond of this exciting labor as we had been of fishing along the ditches, he never failed to accept these invitations. He not only enjoyed the sport, but he was anxious to see how well the seines would operate which he had sat for weeks in making. In addition to this, there was the further gratification of being asked to accept of as many of the earliest shad as he could carry away in his hand. It was a perquisite which we looked for and prized as much as he did himself. This recreation was of course attended with much exposure, being always entered on in the gusty, chilly weather of the early spring.

The morning after my quitting school saw him leaving us by daybreak to go on one of these fishing-excursions, taking my brother with him. It was in April, a cold, raw, and blustering time, and they would be gone all day. I had put my little matters in order,—though there was really very little to do in this way, as neither my wardrobe nor chamber was crowded with superfluities,—and having decided among ourselves where the machine should stand, I sat down with my mother and sister to sew. The weather had changed to quite a snow-storm, with angry gusts of wind; but our small sitting-room was warm and cheerful. We drew round the stove, and discussed the events of the coming week. We were to try the machine on the work which my mother and sister then had in the house,—for Jane had long since left school, and was actively employed at home. She had gone through a similar training with myself. I was to teach both mother and her the use of the machine; and we had determined, that, as soon as Jane had become sufficiently expert as an operator, she was to obtain a situation in some establishment, and our earnings were to be saved, until, with father's assistance, we could purchase machines for her and mother. We made up our minds that we could accomplish this within a year at farthest. Thus there was much before and around us to cheer our hearts and fill them with the brightest anticipations. It seemed to me, that, if I had been travelling in a long lane, I was now approaching a delightful turn,—for it has been said that there is none so long as to be without one.

We had dined frugally, as usual, and mother had set away an ample provision for the two absentees, who invariably came home with great appetites. Our work had been resumed around the stove, and all was calm and comfortable within the little sitting-room, though without the wind had risen higher and the snow fell faster and faster, when the door was suddenly opened, and as suddenly shut, by the wife of a neighbor, who, with hands clasped together, as if overcome by some terrible grief, rushed toward where my mother was sitting, and exclaimed,—

"Oh, Mrs. Lacey! how can I tell you?"

"What is it?" eagerly inquired my mother, starting from her seat, and casting from her the work on which she had been engaged. "What is it? Speak! What has happened?" she cried, wild at the woman's apparent inability to communicate the tidings she had evidently come to relate.

Regaining her composure in some measure, the latter, covering her face with her hands, and bursting into tears, sobbed out,—

"He's drowned!"

"Oh! which of them?" shrieked my mother, wringing her hands, and every vestige of color in her cheeks supplanted by a pallor so frightful that it struck dismay to my heart.

A mysterious instinct had warned her, the moment the woman spoke the first words, that some calamity had overtaken us.

"Which of them?" she repeated, with frantic impetuosity, "Is it my husband or my son? Speak! speak! My heart breaks!"

"Your husband, Mrs. Lacey," the woman replied; and as if relieved from the crushing burden she had thus transferred from her own spirit to ours, she sank back exhausted into a chair.

"Oh! when, where, and how?" demanded my mother. "Are you sure it is true? Who brought the news?"

"Your own son, Ma'am; he sent me here to tell you," answered the woman.

The door opened at the moment, and Fred, accompanied by several of the neighbors, entered the room. Crying as if his heart would break, he called out,—

"Oh, mother! it's too true,—father is gone!"

This confirmation of the withering blow broke her down. I saw that she was tottering to a fall, and threw my arms round her just in time to prevent it. We laid her on the settee, insensible to everything about her.

As the news of our great bereavement spread, the neighbors crowded in, offering their sympathy and aid. It was very kind of them, but, alas! could do nothing towards lightening its weight. The story of how my dear father came to his untimely end was at length related to us. He had gone out upon the river in a boat from which a seine was being cast, and by accident, no one could tell exactly how, had fallen overboard. Being no swimmer, and the water of icy coldness, he sank immediately, without again coming to the surface. Strong arms were waiting to seize him, upon rising, but the deep had closed over him.

I know not how it was, but the prostration of my poor mother seemed to give me new strength to bear up under this terrible affliction. Oh! that was a sad evening for us, and the birthday to which all had looked forward with so much pleasure as the happiest of my life was to be the saddest. Morning—it was Sunday—brought comparative calmness to my mother. But she was broken down by the awful suddenness of the blow. She wept over the thought that he had died without her being near him,—that there had been no opportunity for parting words,—that she was not able to close his dying eyes. She could have borne it better, if she had been permitted to speak to him, to hear him say farewell, before death shut out the world from his view. Then there was the painful anxiety as to recovering the body. It had sunk in deep water, in the middle of the river, and it was uncertain how far the strong current might have swept it away from the spot where the accident occurred. The neighbors had already begun to search for it with drags, and all through that gloomy Sunday had continued their labor without success; for they were not watermen, and therefore knew little of the proper methods of procedure.

Days passed away in this distressing uncertainty. Our pastor, Mr. Seeley, missing Fred and Jane from Sunday-school, as well as myself from the charge of my class, and learning the cause of our absence, came down to see us. His consolations to my mother, his sympathy, his prayers, revived and strengthened her. Finding that her immediate anxiety was about the recovery of the body, he told her that the bodies of drowned persons were seldom found without a reward being offered for them, and that one must be promised in the present case. This suggestion brought up the question of payment, and for the first time in our affliction it was recollected that my father had always persisted in carrying in his pocket-wallet all the money he had saved, and thus whatever he might have accumulated was with him at the time of his death. Following, nevertheless, the advice of our excellent pastor, a reward of fifty dollars was advertised, and just one week from the fatal day the body was brought to our now desolated home. But the wallet, with its contents, had been abstracted. The little fund my mother had always managed to keep on hand was too small to meet this heavy draft of the reward in addition to that occasioned by the funeral, so that, when that sad ceremony was over, we found ourselves beginning the world that now opened on us incumbered with a debt of fifty dollars.

But though borne down by the weight of our affliction, we were far from being hopelessly discouraged. It is true that my young hopes had been suddenly blasted. The bright pictures of the future which we had painted in our little sitting-room the very morning of the day that our calamity overtook us had all faded from sight, and were remembered only in contrast with the dark shadows that now filled their places. The cup, brimming with joyous anticipations, had been dashed from my lips. My birthday passed in sorrow and gloom. But I roused myself from a torpor which would have been likely to increase by giving way to it, and put on all the energy of which I was capable. I felt, that, while I had griefs for the dead, I had duties to perform to the living. The staff on which we had mainly leaned for support had been taken away, and we were now left to depend exclusively on our own exertions. I saw that the condition of my mother devolved the chief burden on me, and I determined that I would resolutely assume it.

I had Fred immediately apprenticed to an iron-founder in the neighborhood; and thenceforward, by his weekly allowance for board, he became a contributor to the common support. My knowledge of the sewing-machine secured for me a situation in a large establishment, in which more than thirty other girls were employed in making bosoms, wristbands, and collars for shirts; and I gradually recovered from what at first was the bitter disappointment of having no machine of my own.

I have seen it stated in the newspaper, that, when some cotton had been imported into a certain manufacturing town in England, where all the mills had long been closed for want of a supply from this country, the people, who were previously in the greatest distress, went out to meet it as it was approaching the town, and the women wept over the bales, and kissed them, and then sang a hymn of thanksgiving for the welcome importation. It would give them work! It was with a feeling akin to this that I took my position in the great establishment referred to, having also succeeded in obtaining a situation for my sister, whom I instructed in the use of the machine until she became as expert an operator as myself.

The certainty of employment, even at moderate wages, relieved my mind of many domestic cares, while the employment itself was a further relief. It was, moreover, infinitely more agreeable than working for the slop-shops, or even for the most fashionable tailors. Our duties were defined and simple, and there was no unreasonable hurry, and no night-work: we had our evenings to ourselves. As usual with sewing-women, the pay was invariably small. The old formula had been adhered to,—that because the cost of a sewing-woman's board was but trifling, therefore her wages should be graduated to a figure just above it. She was not permitted, as men are, to earn too much. My sister and I were sometimes able to earn eight dollars a week between us, sometimes only six. But this little income was the stay of the family. And it was well enough, so long as we had no sickness to interrupt our work and lessen the moderate sum.

They paid off the girls by gas-light on Saturday evening. As we had a long walk to reach home, the streets through which we passed presented, on that evening, an animated appearance. A vast concourse of work-women, laborers, mechanics, clerks, and others, who had also received their weekly wages, thronged the streets. There were crowds of girls from the binderies, mostly well dressed, and sewing-women carrying great bundles to the tailors, many of them, without doubt uncertain as to whether their work would be accepted, just as we had been in former days. As the evening advanced, the shops of all descriptions for the supply of family-stores were crowded by the wives of workmen thus paid off, and the sewing-girls or their mothers, all purchasing necessaries for the coming week, thus immediately disbursing the vast aggregate paid out on Saturday for wages.

The quickness with which I secured employment on the sewing-machine, because of my having qualified myself to operate it, was a new confirmation of my idea that women are engaged in so few occupations only because they have not been taught. Employers want skilful workers, not novices to whom they are compelled to teach everything. But what was to be the ultimate effect on female labor of the introduction of this machine had been a doubtful question with me until now, I worked so steadily in this establishment, the occupation was so constant, as well as so light, with far more bodily exercise than formerly when sitting in one position over the needle, and the wages were paid so punctually, with no mean attempts to cut us down on the false plea of imperfect work, that I came insensibly to the conclusion that a vast benefit had been conferred on the sex by its introduction. Yet the apprehensions felt by all sewing-women, when the new instrument was first brought out, were perfectly natural. I have read that similar apprehensions were entertained by others on similar occasions. When the lace-machines were first introduced in Nottingham, they were destroyed by riotous mobs of hand-loom weavers, who feared the ruin of their business. But where, fifty years ago, there were but a hundred and forty lace-machines in use in England, there are now thirty-five hundred, while the price of lace has fallen from a hundred shillings the square yard to sixpence. Before this lace-machinery was invented, England manufactured only two million dollars' worth per annum, and in doing so employed only eight thousand-hands; whereas now she produces thirty million dollars' worth annually, and employs a hundred and thirty thousand hands. It has been the same with power-looms, reapers, threshing-machines, and every other contrivance to economize human labor. I am sure that my brother would be thrown out of employment, if there were no steam-engine to operate the foundry where he is at work, and that, if there were no sewing-machines, my sister and myself would be compelled to join the less fortunate army of seamstresses who still labor so unrequitedly for the slop-shops.

To satisfy my mind on this subject, I have looked into such books as I have had time and opportunity to consult, and have found evidence of the fact, that, the more we increase our facilities for performing work with speed and cheapness, the more we shall have to do, and so the more hands will be required to do it. The time was when it was considered so great an undertaking for a man to farm a hundred acres, that very few persons were found cultivating a larger tract. But now, with every farming process facilitated by the use of labor-saving machines, there are farms of ten thousand acres better managed than were formerly those of only a hundred acres. There would be no penny paper brought daily to our door, unless the same wonderful revolution had been made in all the processes of the paper-mill, and in the speed of printing-presses. If I had doubted what was to be the consequence of bringing machinery into competition with the sewing-women, it was owing to my utter ignorance of how other great revolutions had affected the labor of different classes of workers.

This doubt thus satisfactorily resolved, it very soon became with me a question for profound wonder, what became of the immensely increased quantity of clothing which was manufactured by so many thousands of machines. I could not learn that our population had suddenly increased to an extent sufficient to account for the enlarged consumption that was evidently taking place. I had heard that there were nations of savages who considered shirts a sort of superfluity, and who moved about in very much the same costume as that in which our primal mother clothed herself just previously to indulging in the forbidden fruit. But they could not have thus suddenly taken to the wearing of machine-made shirts. There was a paragraph also in our paper which stated that the usual dress in hot weather, in some parts of our own South, was only a hat and spurs. This, however, I regarded as a piece of raillery, and was not inclined to place much faith in it. But I had never heard that any other portion of our people were in the habit of going without shirts or pantaloons. If such had been the practice, and if it had on the instant been renounced, it would have accounted for the sudden and unprecedented demand which now sprang up for these indispensable articles of dress. Or if the fashion had so changed that men had taken to wearing two shirts instead of one, that also might account for it,—though the wearing of two would be considered as great an eccentricity as the wearing of none.

I found that others with whom I conversed on the subject were equally surprised with myself. Even some who were concerned in carrying on the establishment in which we were employed could not account for the immediate absorption of the vastly increased quantities of work that were turned out. Few could tell exactly why more was wanted than formerly, nor where it went. The only fact apparent was that there was a demand for thrice as much as before sewing-machines were brought into use. My own conclusion was eventually this,—that distant sections of our country were supplied exclusively from these manufactories in the great cities, which combined capital, energy, and enterprise in the creation of an immense business. Yet I could not understand why people in those distant sections did not establish manufactories of their own. They had quite as much capital, and could procure machines as readily, while the population to be supplied was immediately at their doors.

I had always heard that the South and West had never at any time manufactured their own clothing. I knew that the Southern women, particularly, were so ignorant and helpless that they had always been dependent on the North for almost everything they wore, from the most elaborate bonnet down to a pocket pin-cushion, and that the supplying of their wardrobes, by the men-milliners of this section, was a highly lucrative employment. As it is a difficult matter to divert any business from a channel in which it has long flowed, I concluded that our Northern dealers, having always commanded these distant markets, would easily retain them by adapting their business to the change of circumstances. They had the trade already, and could keep it flowing in its old channels by promptly availing themselves of the new invention.

They did so without hesitation,—indeed, the great struggle was as to who should be first to do it,—and not only kept their business, but obtained for it an unprecedented increase. In doing this they must have displaced thousands of sewing-women all over the country, as their cheaper fabrics enabled them to undersell the latter everywhere. I know that this was the first effect here, and it is difficult to understand how in other places it should have been otherwise. These sewing-women must have been deprived of work, or the consumers of clothing must have immediately begun to purchase and wear double or treble as much as they had been accustomed to. I do not doubt that the consumption increased from the mere fact of increased cheapness. I believe it is an invariable law of trade, that consumption increases as price diminishes. If silks were to fall to a shilling a yard, everybody would turn away from cotton shirts. As it was, shirts were made without collars, and the collars were produced in great manufactories by steam. They were made by millions, and by millions they were consumed. They were sold in boxes of a dozen or a hundred, at two or three cents apiece, according to the wants of the buyer. He could appear once or twice a day in all the glory of an apparently clean shirt, according to his ambition to shine in a character which might be a very new one. Judging by the consumption of these conveniences, it would seem, that, if one had only a clean collar to display, it was of little consequence whether he had a shirt or not.

To digress a moment, I will observe, that, when I first saw these ingenious contrivances to escape the washerwoman's bill, as well as the cuffs made by the same process for ladies' use, they both struck me so favorably, while their cheapness was so surprising, that my curiosity was inflamed to see and know how they were made. In company with my sister, I visited the manufactory. It was in a large building, and employed many hands, who operated with machinery that exceeds my ability to describe. They took a whole piece of thin, cheap muslin, to each side of which they pasted a covering of the finest white paper by passing the three layers between iron rollers. The paper and muslin were in rolls many hundred feet long. The beautiful product of this union was then parted into strips of the proper width and dried, then passed through hot metal rollers, combining friction with pressure, whence it was delivered with a smooth, glossy, enamelled surface. The material for many thousand collars was thus enamelled in five minutes. It was then cut by knives into the different shapes and sizes required, and so rapidly that a man and boy could make more than ten thousand in an hour. Every collar was then put through a machine which printed upon it imitation stitches, so exactly resembling the best work of a sewing-machine as to induce the belief that the collar was actually stitched. Two girls were working or attending two of these machines, and the two produced nearly a hundred collars per minute, or about sixty thousand daily. The button-holes were next punched with even greater rapidity, then the collar was turned over so nicely that no break occurred in the material. Then they were counted and put in boxes, and were ready for market.

Besides these shirt-collars, there was a great variety of ladies' worked cuffs and collars, adapted to every taste, and imitating the finest linen with the nicest exactness, but all made of paper. Some hundreds of thousands of these were piled up around, ready for counting and packing, sufficient, it appeared to me, to supply our whole population for a twelvemonth. They were sold so cheaply, also, that it cost no more to buy a new collar than to wash an old one. Like friction-matches, they were used only once and then thrown away; hence, the consumption being perpetual, the production was continuous the year round.

I inquired of the proprietor how he accounted for the immense consumption of these articles, without which the world had been getting on comfortably for so many thousand years.

"Why," said he, "we have been fortunate enough to create a new want. Perhaps we did not really create the want, but only discovered that an unsatisfied one existed. It is all the same in either case. Any great convenience, or luxury, heretofore unknown to the public, when fairly set before them is sure to come into general use. It has been so, in my experience, with many things that were not thought of twenty years ago. I have been as much puzzled to account for the unlimited consumption of cuffs and collars as you are to know why so much more clothing is used now than before sewing-machines came into operation. But the increased cheapness of a thing, whether old or new, and the convenience of getting it, are the great stimulants to enlarged consumption,—and as these conditions are present, so will be the latter."

"But when you began this business, did you expect to sell so many?" I inquired.

"We did not," he replied, "and are ourselves surprised at the quantity we sell. Besides, there are several other factories, which produce greater numbers than we do. But when I reflect on the extent to which the business has already gone, I find the facts to be only in keeping with results in other cases. I have thought and read much on the very subject which so greatly interests you. Some years ago I was puzzled to account for the immensely increased circulation of newspapers,—rising, in some instances, from one thousand up to forty thousand. I knew that our population had not grown at one tenth that rate, yet the circulation went on extending. One day I asked a country postmaster how he accounted for it 'Why,' he replied, 'the question is easily answered;—where a man formerly took only one paper, he now takes seven. Cheap postage, and the establishment of news-agents all over the country, enable the people to get papers at less cost and with only half the trouble of twenty years ago. The power of production is complete, and the machinery of distribution has kept pace with it. The people don't actually need the papers any more now than they did then, but the convenience of having them brought to their doors induces them to buy six or seven where they formerly bought only one. That's the way it happens.'"

"Then," continued my polite and communicative informant, "look at the article of pins. You ladies, who use so many more than our sex, have never been able to tell what becomes of them. You know that of late years you have been using the American solid-head pins, which were produced so cheaply as immediately to supersede the foreign article. Now," said he, with a smile, "don't you think you use up six pins you formerly used only one? Careful people, twenty years ago, when they saw one on the pavement, or on the parlor-floor, stopped and picked it up; but now they pass it by, or sweep it into the dust-pan. Is it not so, and have not careful people ceased to exist?"

I confess that the illustration was so full of point that some indistinct conviction of its truth came over me; it was really my own experience.

"So you see," he continued, "that, while of all these new and cheaply manufactured articles there is a vast consumption, there is also a vast waste. People—that is, prudent people—generally take care of things according to their cost. You don't wear your best bonnet in the rain. It is precisely so with our cuffs and collars. We sell them so cheaply that some people wear three or four a day, while a careful person would make one suffice. When the collar was attached to the shirt, it served for a much longer time; what but cheapness and convenience can tempt to such wastefulness now? My family, at least the female portion, use these articles about as extravagantly, and I think your whole sex must be equally fond of indulging in the same lavish use of them,—otherwise the consumption could not be so great as you see it is."

I could not but inwardly plead guilty to this weakness of indulging in clean cuffs and collars,—neither could I fail to recognize the soundness of this reasoning, which must have grown out of superior knowledge. It gave me new light, and settled a great many doubts.

"I suppose, Miss," he resumed, as if unwilling to leave anything unexplained, "you use friction-matches at home? Now you know how cheap they are,—two boxes for a cent. But I remember when one box sold for twenty-five cents. People were then careful how they used them, and it was not everybody who could afford to do so. The flint and tinder-box were long in going out of use. But how is it now? Instead of one match serving to light a cigar, the smokers use two or three. They waste them because they are cheap, carrying them loose in their pockets, that they may always have enough, with some to throw away.

"Take the article of hoop-skirts. Women did very well without them, and looked quite as well, at least in my opinion. But some ingenious man conceived the idea of tempting them with a new want, and they were at once persuaded into believing that hoop-skirts were indispensable to a genteel appearance. They were adopted all over the country with a rapidity that outstripped that of the cuffs and collars,—not, perhaps, that as many were manufactured, because, if that had been the case, they could not have been consumed, unless each woman had worn two or three. And they may in fact wear two or three each,—I don't know how that is,—but look at the waste already visible. Every week or two, new patterns are brought out, better, lighter, or prettier than the last; whereupon the old ones are thrown aside, though not half worn. Why, Miss, do you know that your sex are carrying about them some thousands of tons of brass and steel in the shape of these skirts? As to the waste, it is already so large as to have become a public nuisance. An old hat or shoe may be given away to somebody,—an old scrubbing-brush may be disposed of by putting it into the stove; but as to an old skirt, who wants it? You cannot burn it; the very beggars will not take it; and hence it is thrown into the street, or into the alley close to your door, where it continues for months to trip up the feet of every wayfaring man quite as provokingly as it sometimes tripped up those of the wearer. It is the waste of hoop-skirts, as much as anything else, that keeps the manufacture so brisk.

"Then, again," he continued, as if expanded by the skirts he had just been speaking of, "look at the long dresses which the ladies now wear. See how the most costly stuffs are dragging over the pavement, sweeping up the filth with which it is covered. To speak of the foul condition into which such draggletailed dresses must soon get is positively sickening. If a dozen of them were thrown into a closet and left there for a few hours, I have no doubt they would burn of spontaneous combustion."

I was half inclined to take fire myself at hearing this, but remained silent, and he proceeded.

"See, too, what a constant fidget the wearers are in, under the incumbrance of a dress so foolishly long as to require the use of both hands to keep it at a cleanly elevation. I presume the ladies wear these ridiculous trains because they think they look more graceful in them. But do you know, Miss, that our sex feel the most profound contempt for a woman who is so weak as to make such an exhibition of folly? It might do for great people, at a great party,—but in dirty, sloppy, muddy streets, by servant-girls as well as by fashionable women, it is considered not only indecent, but as evincing a want of common sense. Moreover, the quantity of material destroyed by thus dragging over the pavement is very great. It must amount to thousands of yards annually, and it appears to me that the more it costs per yard, the more of it is devoted to street-sweeping. Here is wastefulness by wholesale."

"But do you think the same remarks apply to the case of the greatly increased amount of clothing that is now manufactured by the sewing-machines?" I inquired.

"Certainly, Miss," he responded. "There are not a great many more people in this country now to be clothed than there were three years ago; yet at least three times as much clothing is manufactured. The question is as to how it is consumed. I do not suppose that men wear two coats or shirts, or that any ever went without them. But the increased cheapness has led to increased waste, exactly as in the case of pins and matches. Clothing being obtainable at lower prices than were ever known before in this country, it is purchased in unnecessary quantities, just like the newspapers, and not taken care of. Thousands of men now have two or three coats where they formerly had only one. It is these extra outfits, and this continual waste, that keep up the production at which you are so much astonished. The facts afford you another illustration of the great law of supply and demand,—that as you cheapen and multiply products or manufactures of any kind, so will the consumption of them increase. If pound-cake could be had at the price of corn-bread, does it not strike you that the community would consume little else? The cry for pound-cake would be universal,—it would be, in fact, in everybody's mouth."

"But," I again inquired, "will this extraordinary demand for the products of the sewing-machine continue? I have told you that I am a sewing-girl, and hence feel a deep interest in learning all I can upon the subject."

"Judging from appearances, it must," was his reply. "We are the most extravagant people in the world. We consume, per head, more coffee, tea, and sugar, jewelry, silks, and cotton, than the people of any other country on the face of the earth. Our women wear more satins and laces, and our men smoke more high-priced cigars, than those of any other part of the world. They eat more meat, drink more liquor, and spend more in trifles. And it is not likely that they contemplate any reformation of these lavish habits, at least while wages keep up to the present rates. Were it proposed, I think that coats and shirts would be about the last things the men would begin with, and paper cuffs and collars among the last the women would repudiate. They are fond enough of changing their clothes, but have no idea of doing without them."

"I notice," I observed, "that you employ girls in your establishment, several being occupied in feeding the stamping-rollers. Could a man feed those rollers more efficiently than a girl? or would they turn out more work in a week, if attended by a man than by a girl?"

"Not any more," he answered.

"Do the girls receive as much wages as the men?" I added.

"About one third as much," he replied.

"But," I suggested, "if they perform as much work as men could, why do you pay them so much less?"

"Competition, Miss," he answered, "There is a constant pressure on us from girls seeking employment, and this keeps down wages. Besides, those whom we do employ come here wholly ignorant of what they are required to do. Some have never worked a day in their lives. It requires time to teach them, and while being taught they spoil a great deal of material. It is a long time before they become really skilled hands. You can have no conception of the kind of help that offers itself to us every week. Parents don't seem to educate their daughters to anything useful; and our girls nowadays appear to have little or nothing to do in-doors. Formerly they had plenty of household duties, as a multitude of things were done at home which even the poorest old woman never thinks of doing now. The baker now makes their bread; the spinning, the weaving, the knitting, and sewing are taken out of their hands by machinery; and if women want to work, they must go out and seek it, just as those do who apply to us. Machinery has undoubtedly effected a great revolution in all home-employments for women, compelling many to be idle; and not being properly encouraged to adopt new employments in place of the old ones, they remain idle until forced to work for bread, and then go out in search of occupation, knowing no more of one half the things we want them to do than mere children."

"But when they become skilled," I again asked, "you do not pay them as high wages as you pay the men, though they do as much and as well?"

"Women don't need as much," he replied. "They can live on less, they pay less board, have fewer wants, and less occasion for money."

"But don't you think," I rejoined, "that, if you gave them the money, they would find the wants, and that the scarcity of the former is the true reason for the limitation of the latter? Do not working-women live on the little they get only because they are compelled to?"

"It may be so," he answered. "Our wants are born with us,—and as one set is supplied, another rises up to demand gratification. But they offer to work for these wages, and why should we give them more than they ask?"

"But how is it with the women with families, the widows?" I suggested. "Have they no more wants than young girls? If the fewer necessities of the girls be a reason for giving them low wages, why should not the more numerous ones of the widows be as potent a reason for giving them better wages?"

"Competition again, Miss," he responded. "The prices at which the girls work govern the market."

There was no getting over facts like these. Let me look at the subject in whatever aspect I might, it seemed impossible that female labor should be adequately paid by any class of employers. But on the present occasion this was an incidental question. The primary one, why so much more sewing was required for the people now than formerly, was answered measurably to my satisfaction. I thought a great deal on this subject, because now, since the loss of our main family-dependence, I was more interested in its solution. I think I settled down into accepting the foregoing facts and opinions as embodying a satisfactory explanation; and although not exactly set at ease, yet the conclusion then embraced has not been changed by any subsequent discovery.

The gentleman referred to may have been altogether wrong in some parts of his argument, but I was too little versed in matters of trade, and the laws of supply and demands to show wherein he was so. It seemed to me a strange argument, that the consumption of things was to be so largely attributed to wastefulness. But I suppose this must be what people call political economy, and how should I be expected to know anything of that? I knew that in our little family the utmost economy was practised. I have turned or fixed up the same bonnet as many as four times, putting on new trimmings at very little expense, and making it look so different every time that none suspected it of being the old bonnet altered, while many of my acquaintances admired it as a new one, some of them even inquiring what it cost, and who was the milliner that made it. We never thought of giving one away until it had gone through many such transformations, nor, in fact, until it was actually used up, at least for me. Even when mine had seen such long and severe service, my sister Jane fell heir to it, though without knowing it,—for she had more pride than myself, and was much more particular about her good looks. Hence, when the thing was at all feasible, my veteran bonnet was transformed, in private, into a very fair new one for her. She had been familiar with my head-gear for so many years that I often wondered how she failed to detect the disguises I put upon it; and I had as much as I could do to keep from laughing, when I brought to her what we invariably called her new bonnet. As she grew older, she became more exacting in her tastes, and at the same time foolishly suspicious of the mysterious origin of her new bonnets,—just as if they were any worse for my having worn them for years! I presume her mortification will be extreme, when she comes to read this. As to old clothes, they were nursed up quite as carefully, though Jane had her full inheritance of both mine and mother's. When entirely past service, they were cut up into carpet-rags, from which we obtained the warmest covering for our floors. Thus practising no wastefulness ourselves, it was difficult to understand how the national wastefulness could be great enough to insure the prosperity of a multitude of extensive manufacturing establishments. But our premises were very humble ones from which to start an argument of any description.

Yet, when the attention of an inquiring mind is directed toward any given subject, it is astonishing how, if only a little observation is practised, it will unfold and expand itself. In my walks to and from the factory there lay numerous open lots or commons, all of which afforded abundant evidence of the extent to which this public wastefulness was carried. Heretofore I had passed on without noticing much about them. But now I observed that they were heaped up with great piles of coal-ashes, from which cropped out large quantities of the unburnt mineral, as black and shining as when it came from the mines. There were thousands of loads of this residuum, in which many hundred tons of pure coal must have been thus wastefully thrown away. In other parts of the city the same evidence of carelessness existed, so that the waste of a single city in the one article of coal must be enormous. Then, over these commons were scattered, almost daily, the remains of clothing, old hats, bonnets, and the indestructible hoop-skirts, of which the collar-maker had complained as being in everybody's way, as much so when out of use as when in. Somebody had been guilty of wastefulness in thus casting these things away. But though losses to some, they were gains to others. By early daylight the rag-pickers came in platoons to gather up all these waifs. The hats, the bonnets, and the clothing were quickly appropriated by women and children who had come out of the narrow courts and hovels of the city in search of what they knew was an every-day harvest. These small gatherings of the rag-pickers amounted to hundreds of dollars daily. Then there was another class of searchers after abandoned treasure, in the persons of other women and children, who, with pronged or pointed sticks, worked their way into the piles of ashes, and picked out basketfuls of coal as heavy as they could carry, and in this laborious way provided themselves with summer and winter fuel.

There was living near us a man who made a business of gathering up the offal of several hundred kitchens in the city, as food for pigs. I know that he grew rich at this vocation. He lived in a much better house than ours, and his wife and daughters dressed as expensively as the wealthiest women. They had a piano, and music in abundance. He had several carts which were sent on their daily rounds through the city, collecting the kitchen-waste of boarding-houses, hotels, and private families. The quantity of good, wholesome food which these carts brought away to be fed to pigs was incredible. It was a common thing to see whole loaves of bread taken out of the family swill-tub, with joints of meat not half eaten, sound vegetables, and fragments of other food, as palatable and valuable as the portion that had been consumed on the table. It seemed as if there were hundreds of families who made it a point never to have food served up a second time. The waste by this thriftlessness was great. I doubt not that some men must have been kept poor by such want of proper oversight on the part of their wives, as I know that it enriched the individual who gathered up the fat crumbs which fell from their tables. I think it must be quite true that "fat kitchens make lean wills."

These slight incidental confirmations of the theory of national wastefulness came under my daily notice. I had heretofore overlooked them, but now they attracted my attention. Then I had only to direct my eye to other and higher fields of observation to be sure that it had some foundation. The streets, the shop-windows, were eloquent witnesses for it. The waste of clothing material consequent on the introduction of hoop-skirts was seen to be prodigious. It was not only the poor thin body that was now to be covered with finery, but the huge balloon in which fashion required that that body should be enveloped. I thought, now that the subject was one for study, that I could see it running through almost every thing.

This wastefulness, then, was to be the ground on which the sewing-woman was to rest her hopes of continued employment. It might be good holding-ground in times of high general prosperity, when money was abundant and circulation active; but how would it be when reverses of any kind overtook the nation? As extravagance was the rule now, it occurred to me that so would a stringent economy be the rule then, The old hats that were usually thrown away upon the commons would be rejuvenated and worn again,—the parsimony of one crisis seeking to make up for the wastefulness of another; for when a sharp turn of hard times comes round, everybody takes to economizing. There are older heads and more observant minds than my own, that must remember how these things have worked in bygone years. These have had the experience of a whole lifetime to enable them to judge: I was a mere inquirer on the threshold of a very brief one.

* * * * *

Our employment at the factory kept us comfortable. In time we were able to earn something more than when we began. Our good pastor had lent us the money with which to pay the reward for recovering my dear father's body; and as my mother had a great dread of being in debt, we had practised a most rigid economy at home in order to save enough to repay him. This we did, a few dollars at a time, until we had finally paid the whole. Though he frequently came down to see my mother in her loneliness, yet he never alluded to the matter of the loan, and actually declined taking any part of it until it was almost forced upon him. He even offered, on one occasion, to increase the loan to any extent that my mother might think necessary for her comfort, and in various ways manifested a strong disposition to do everything far us that he could. We had all been favorite pupils in his Sunday school, where I had soon been promoted to the position of a teacher. Finding, also, that we were fond of reading, he had lent us books from his own library, and even invited me to come and select for myself. I sometimes accepted these invitations, and occasionally chose books on subjects that seemed to surprise him very much But, after all, are not a few books well chosen better than a great library?

The lending of the money at the time we were in so much distress was of inexpressible value to us. But as every-day life is a leaf in one's history, so was this pecuniary experience in ours. I had innocently supposed that the chief value of money was to supply one's own wants, but I now learned that its highest capacity for good lay in its power of ministering to the necessities of others. I have read that in prosperity it is the easiest thing to find a friend; but that in adversity it is of all things the most difficult. I know that in trouble we often come off better than we expect, and always better than we deserve. But men of the noblest dispositions are apt to consider themselves happiest when others share their happiness with them. Our pastor lent us this little sum of money at a time when it was of the utmost value to us; but it was done in a way so hearty, and so unobtrusive, as to add immeasurably to the obligation. Indeed, I sometimes think that a pecuniary favor which is granted grudgingly is no favor at all.

Still, while at work in the factory, there were many things to think of, and some inconveniences to submit to. The long walks to it were unpleasant in stormy weather, and occasionally we were compelled to lose a day or two from this cause. But then the out-door exercise in fine weather was beneficial to health, and we were spared the public mortification of carrying great bundles of made-up clothing through the streets: for, let a sewing-girl feel as independent as she may, she does not covet the being everywhere known as belonging to that class of workers. Her bundle is the badge of her profession. My sister had a great deal of pride on this point. She was extremely nice about her looks, There was a neat jauntiness in her appearance, of which she seemed to be fully conscious; and as she grew up to womanhood, I think it became more apparent in all her actions. She was really a very attractive girl,—certainly so to me,—and she must have been more so to the other sex, as I noticed that the men about the establishment were more courteous to her than they were to me. Even our employer treated her with a deferential politeness that he did not extend to others, and when paying us our wages, always had a complimentary remark for Jane, as if seeking to win the good opinion of one who seemed to be a general favorite.

But I confess that during all the time we were working in the factory I sighed for the possession of a machine of my own, so that I could be more at home with my mother in her loneliness: for when we left her in the morning we carried our dinners with us, leaving her to her own thoughts during the whole day. The grief at my father's loss had by no means been overcome, for with all of us it was something more than the shadow of a passing cloud. Personally, I cared nothing for the carrying of a bundle through the streets, even though it made proclamation of my being a sewing-girl. Then as to exercise or recreation, I could have abundance in the garden. As it was, I still continued to see it kept in order. Fred was very good in doing all I wanted. He would rise early before breakfast, and do any digging it required, and in the evening, after returning from the foundry, would attend to many other things about it as they needed. I was equally industrious; and now that it was wholly left for me to see to, my fondness for it increased, while I came to understand its management more thoroughly than when my father was sole director. The more I had to do, the more I learned. Then there were times when I rose in the morning feeling so poorly that it was a tax upon both spirits and strength to tramp the long distance to the factory; yet it would have been no hardship to work at a machine at home, or to do an hour's gardening. I think my earnings could have been made quite as large as they were at the factory, as the owner of a machine generally received a little more pay than when working on one belonging to her employer; and I felt quite sure that there would be no difficulty in obtaining abundance of work. My doubts on this point had been pretty well settled.

But we had no hundred and thirty or forty dollars to lay out for a machine now, and there was no prospect of our being able to save enough to purchase one. Hence I never even hinted to my mother what my wishes were, as it would only be to her a fresh anxiety. I did mention the subject to my sister, but she did not seem to favor my plans. She was a great favorite at the factory, and why should not the factory be as great a favorite with her? I have no doubt that our pastor, who was as wealthy as he was generous and good, would have promptly loaned us, or even me, the money; but he had heard nothing of the fact that my father's sudden death had alone prevented my obtaining a machine, nor during his frequent visits to our house did we ever mention what we had then expected or what I now so much desired. Besides, it would be a great debt, so large that I should have hesitated about incurring it. We had been a long while in getting clear of the other, and the apparent hopelessness of discharging one nearly three times as great, and that, too, from my individual earnings, was such, that in the end I concluded it would be better for me to avoid the debt by doing without the machine, than to have it only on condition of buying it on credit.



MEMORIES OF AUTHORS.

A SERIES OF PORTRAITS FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE.

THEODORE HOOK AND HIS FRIENDS.

Theodore Edward Hook was born in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, on the 22d of September, 1788. His father was an eminent musical composer, who "enjoyed in his time success and celebrity"; his elder brother James became Dean of Windsor, whose son is the present learned and eloquent Dean of Chichester; the mother of both was an accomplished lady, and also an author.

His natural talent, therefore, was early nursed. Unfortunately, the green-room was the too frequent study of the youth; for his father's fame and income were chiefly derived from the composition of operetta songs, for which Theodore usually wrote the libretti. When little more than a boy he had produced perhaps thirty farces, and in 1808 gave birth to a novel. Those who remember the two great actors of a long period, Mathews and Liston, will be at no loss to comprehend the popularity of Hook's farces: for they were his "props."

In 1812, when his finances were low, and the chances of increasing them limited, and when, perhaps, also, his constitution had been tried by "excesses," he received the appointment of Accountant-General and Treasurer at the Mauritius,—a post with an income of two thousand pounds a year. Hook seems to have derived his qualifications for this office from his antipathy to arithmetic and his utter unfitness for business.

The result might have been easily foreseen. In 1819 he returned to England: the cause may be indicated by his very famous pun, when, the Governor of the Cape having expressed a hope that he was not returning because of ill health, he was "sorry to say they think there is something wrong in the chest." He was found guilty of owing twelve thousand pounds to the Government: yet he was "without a shilling in his pocket." If public funds had been abstracted, he was none the richer, and there was certainly no suspicion that the money had been dishonestly advantageous to him.

Although kept for years in hot water, battling with the Treasury, it was not until 1823 that the penalty was exacted,—sometime after the "John Bull" had made him a host of enemies. Of course, as he could not pay in purse, he was doomed to "pay in person." After spending some months "pleasantly" at a dreary sponging-house in Shoe Lane, where there was ever "an agreeable prospect, barring the windows," he was removed to the "Rules of the Bench," residing there a year, being discharged from custody in 1825.

Hook, while in the Rules, was under very little restraint; he was almost as much in society as ever, taking special care not to be seen by any of his creditors, who might have pounced upon him and made the Marshal responsible for the debt. The danger was less in Hook's case than in that of others, for his principal "detaining creditor" was the King. I remember his telling me, that, during his "confinement" in the Rules, he made the acquaintance of a gentleman, who, while a prisoner there, paid a visit to India. The story is this. The gentleman called one morning on the Marshal, who said,—

"Mr. ——, I have not had the pleasure to see you for a long time."

"No wonder," was the answer; "for since you saw me last I have been to India."

In reply to a look of astonished inquiry, he explained,—

"I knew my affairs there were so intricate and involved that no one but myself could unravel them; so I ran the risk, and took my chance. I am back with ample funds to pay all my debts, and to live comfortably for the rest of my days."

Mr. Hook did not say if the gentleman had obtained from his securities a license for what he had done; but the anecdote illustrates the extreme laxity enjoyed by prisoners in the Rules, (which extended to several streets,) as compared with the doleful incarceration to which poor debtors were subjected, who in those days often had their miserable home in a jail for debts that might have been paid by shillings.

Hook then took up his residence at Putney, from which he afterwards removed to a "mansion" in Cleveland Street, but subsequently to Fulham, where the remainder of his life was passed, and where he died. It was a small, detached cottage. It is of this cottage that Lockhart says, "We doubt if its interior was ever seen by half a dozen people besides the old confidential worshippers of Bull's mouth."

He resided here in comparative obscurity. It gave him a pleasant prospect of Putney Bridge, and of Putney on the opposite side of the river. As the Thames flowed past the bottom of his small and narrow garden, he had a perpetually cheerful and changing view of the many gay passers-by in small boats, yachts, and steamers. The only room of the cottage I ever saw was somewhat coarsely furnished: a few prints hung on the walls, but there was no evidence of those suggestive refinements which substitute intellectual for animal gratifications, in the internal arrangements of a domicile that becomes necessarily a workshop.

Hook's love of practical joking seems to have commenced early. Almost of that character was his well-known answer to the Vice-Chancellor at Oxford, when asked whether he was prepared to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles,—"Certainly, to forty of them, if you please"; and his once meeting the Proctor dressed in his robes, and being questioned, "Pray, Sir, are you a member of this University?" he replied, "No, Sir; pray are you?"

In the Memoirs of Charles Mathews by his widow abundant anecdotes are recorded of these practical jokes; but, in fact, "Gilbert Gurney," which may be regarded as an autobiography, is full of them. Mr. Barham, his biographer, also relates several, and states, that, when a young man, he had a "museum" containing a large and varied collection of knockers, sign-paintings, barbers' poles, and cocked hats, gathered together during his predatory adventures; but its most attractive object was "a gigantic Highlander," lifted from the shop-door of a tobacconist on a dark, foggy night. These "enterprises of great pith and moment" are detailed by himself in full. The most "glorious" of them has been often told: how he sent through the post some four thousand letters, inviting on a given day a huge assemblage of visitors to the house of a lady of fortune, living at 54, Berners Street. They came, beginning with a dozen sweeps at daybreak, and including lawyers, doctors, upholsterers, jewellers, coal-merchants, linen-drapers, artists, even the Lord Mayor, for whose behoof a special temptation was invented. In a word, there was no conceivable trade, profession, or calling that was not summoned to augment the crowd of foot-passengers and carriages by which the street was thronged from dawn till midnight; while Hook and a friend enjoyed the confusion from a room opposite.[B] Lockhart, in the "Quarterly," states that the hoax was merely the result of a wager that Hook would in a week make the quiet dwelling the most famous house in all London. Mr. Barham affirms that the lady, Mrs. Tottenham, had on some account fallen under the displeasure of the formidable trio, Mr. Hook and two unnamed friends.

His conversation was an unceasing stream of wit, of which he was profuse, as if he knew the source to be inexhaustible. He never kept it for display, or for company, or for those only who knew its value: wit was, indeed, as natural to him as commonplace to commonplace characters. It was not only in puns, in repartees, in lively retorts, in sparkling sentences, in brilliant illustrations, or in apt or exciting anecdote, that this faculty was developed. I have known him string together a number of graceful verses, every one of which was fine in composition and admirable in point, at a moment's notice, on a subject the most inauspicious, and apparently impossible either to wit or rhyme,—yet with an effect that delighted a party, and might have borne the test of criticism the most severe. These verses he usually sang in a sort of recitative to some tune with which all were familiar,—and if a piano were at hand, he accompanied himself with a gentle strain of music.

Mrs. Mathews relates that she was present once when Hook dined with the Drury-Lane Company, at a banquet given to Sheridan in honor of his return for Westminster. The guests were numerous, yet he made a verse upon every person in the room:—"Every action was turned to account; every circumstance, the look, the gesture, or any other accidental effect, served as occasion for wit." Sheridan was astonished at his extraordinary faculty, and declared that he could not have imagined such power possible, had he not witnessed it.

People used to give him subjects the most unpromising to test his powers. Thus, Campbell records that he once supplied him with a theme, "Pepper and Salt," and that he amply seasoned the song with both.

I was present when this rare faculty was put to even a more severe test, at a party at Mr. Jerdan's, at Grove House, Brompton,—a house long since removed to make room for Ovington Square. It was a large supper-party, and many men and women of mark were present: for the "Literary Gazette" was then in the zenith of its power, worshipped by all aspirants for fame, and courted even by those whose laurels had been won. Its editor, be his shortcomings what they might, was then, as he had ever been, ready with a helping hand for those who needed help: a lenient critic, a generous sympathizer, who preferred pushing a dozen forward to thrusting one back.

Hook, having been asked for his song, and, as usual, demanding a theme, one of the guests, either facetiously or maliciously, called out, "Take Yates's big nose." (Yates, the actor, was one of the party.) To any one else such a subject would have been appalling: not so to Hook. He rose, glanced once or twice round the table, and chanted (so to speak) a series of verses perfect in rhythm and rhyme: the incapable theme being dealt with in a spirit of fun, humor, serious comment, and absolute philosophy, utterly inconceivable to those who had never heard the marvellous improvisator,—each verse describing something which the world considered great, but which became small, when placed in comparison with

"Yates's big nose!"

It was the first time I had met Hook, and my astonishment was unbounded. I found it impossible to believe the song was improvised; but I had afterwards ample reason to know that so thorough a triumph over difficulties was with him by no means rare.

I had once a jovial day with him on the Thames,—fishing in a punt on the river opposite the Swan at Thames-Ditton. Hook was in good health and good spirits, and brimful of mirth. He loved the angler's craft, though he seldom followed it; and he spoke with something like affection of a long-ago time, when bobbing for roach at the foot of Fulham Bridge, the fisherman perpetually raising or lowering his float, according to the ebb and flow of the tide.

A record of his "sayings and doings," that glorious day, from early morn to set of sun, would fill a goodly volume. It was fine weather, and fishing on the Thames is lazy fishing; for the gudgeons bite freely, and there is little labor in "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection of the dolce far-niente, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire for refreshment. Idle time is idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr. Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived—probably then made—the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," entitled "The Swan at Ditton."

The last time I saw Hook was at Prior's Bank, Fulham, where his neighbors, Mr. Baylis and Mr. Whitmore, had given an "entertainment," the leading feature being an amateur play,—for which, by the way, I wrote the prologue. Hook was then in his decadence,—in broken health,—his animal spirits gone,—the cup of life drained to the dregs. It was morning before the guests departed, yet Hook remained to the last; and a light of other days brightened up his features, as he opened the piano, and began a recitative. The theme was, of course, the occasion that had brought the party together, and perhaps he never, in his best time, was more original and pointed. I can recall two of the lines,—

"They may boast of their Fulham omnibus, But this is the Fulham stage."

There was a fair young boy standing by his side, while he was singing. One of the servants suddenly opened the drawing-room shutters, and a flood of light felt upon the lad's head: the effect was very touching, but it became a thousand times more so, as Hook, availing himself of the incident, placed his hand upon the youth's brow, and in tremulous tones uttered a verse, of which I recall only the concluding lines,—

"For you is the dawn of the morning. For me is the solemn good-night."

He rose from the piano, burst into tears, and left the room. Few of those who were present saw him afterwards.[C]

All the evening Hook had been low in spirits. It seemed impossible to stir him into animation, until the cause was guessed at by Mr. Blood, a surgeon, who was at that time an actor at the Haymarket. He prescribed a glass of Sherry, and retired to procure it, returning presently with a bottle of pale brandy. Having administered two or three doses, the machinery was wound up, and the result was as I have described it.

I give one more instance of his ready wit and rapid power of rhyme. He had been idle for a fortnight, and had written nothing for the "John Bull" newspaper. The clerk, however, took him his salary as usual, and on entering his room said, "Have you heard the news? the king and queen of the Sandwich Islands are dead," (they had just died in England of the small-pox.) "and," added the clerk, "we want something about them."—"Instantly," cried Hook, "you shall have it:—

"'Waiter, two Sandwiches,' cried Death. And their wild Majesties resigned their breath."

The "John Bull" was established at the close of the year 1820, and it is said that Sir Walter Scott, having been consulted by some leader among "high Tories," suggested Hook as the person precisely suited for the required task. The avowed purpose of the publication was to extinguish the party of the Queen,—Caroline, wife of George IV.; and in a reckless and frightful spirit the work was done. She died, however, in 1821, and persecution was arrested at her grave. Its projectors and proprietors had counted on a weekly sale of seven hundred and fifty copies, and prepared accordingly. By the sixth week it had reached a sale of ten thousand, and became a valuable property to "all concerned." Of course, there were many prosecutions for libels, damages and costs and incarceration for breaches of privilege; but all search for actual delinquents was vain. Suspicions were rife enough, but positive proofs there were none.

Hook was of course In no way implicated in so scandalous and slanderous a publication! On one occasion there appeared among the answers to correspondents a paragraph purporting to be a reply from Mr. Theodore Hook, "disavowing all connection with the paper." The gist of the paragraph was this:—"Two things surprise us in this business: the first, that anything we have thought worthy of giving to the public should have been mistaken for Mr. Hook's; and secondly, that such a person as Mr. Hook should think himself disgraced by a connection with 'John Bull.'"

Even now, at this distance of time, few of the contributors are actually known; among them were undoubtedly John Wilson Croker, and avowedly Haynes Bayly, Barham, and Dr. Maginn.

In 1836, when I had resigned the "New Monthly" into the hands of Mr. Hook, he proposed to me to take the sub-editorship and general literary management of the "John Bull." That post I undertook, retaining it for a year. Our "business" was carried on, not at the "John Bull" office, but at Easty's Hotel, in Southampton Street, Strand, in two rooms on the first floor of that tavern. Mr. Hook was never seen at the office; his existence, indeed, was not recognized there. If any one had asked for him by name, the answer would have been that no such person was known. Although at the period of which I write there was no danger to be apprehended from his walking in and out of the small office in Fleet Street, a time had been when it could not have been done without personal peril. Editorial work was therefore conducted with much secrecy, a confidential person communicating between the editor and the printer, who never knew, or rather was assumed not to know, by whom the articles were written. In 1836, some years before, and during the years afterwards, no paragraph was inserted that in the remotest degree assailed private character. Political hatreds and personal hostilities had grown less in vogue, and Hook had lived long enough to be tired of assailing those whom he rather liked and respected. The bitterness of his nature (if it ever existed, which I much doubt) had worn out with years. Undoubtedly much of the brilliant wit of the "John Bull" had evaporated, in losing its distinctive feature. It had lost its power, and as a "property" dwindled to comparative insignificance. Mr. Hook derived but small income from the editorship during the later years of his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons. I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more than one occasion, while acting under him, was to remember that "abuse" seldom effectually answered a purpose, and that it was wiser as well as safer to act on the principle that "praise undeserved is satire in disguise." All that was evil in the "John Bull" had been absorbed by two infamous weekly newspapers, "The Age" and "The Satirist." They were prosperous and profitable. Happily, no such newspapers now exist; the public not only would not buy, they would not tolerate, the personalities, the indecencies, the gross outrages on public men, the scandalous assaults on private character, that made these publications "good speculations" at the period of which I write, and undoubtedly disgraced the "John Bull" during the early part of its career.