Caper Sauce Part 15

Again, I couldn't lecture because I can't bear saleratus, and I suppose all my engagements wouldn't be in cities. Then, nextly, I couldn't lecture, because, after the lecture was over, I should be "dead beat;"

and that is just the time everybody would hurry into the committee-room to tell me that I was; and to use a dozen dictionaries, to advise "me not to talk," but to go right straight home and go to bed as soon--as _they_ had got through talking with me!

Lastly, the reason I can't lecture is because I am the wife of a lecturer. _He_ likes it; but two of that trade in one family is more than human nature can stagger under. It is enough for me to see him come home white about the gills, with a muddy valise, and a mousey horror of a travelling blanket, that I always air the first thing, and with an insane desire to indulge in a Rip Van Winkle nap, and dodge his kind.

Now I hope, in conclusion, it is sufficiently clear to you that I have no call on the platform. My "sphere is home." I trust Dr. Holland will make a note of this. "_My sphere is home_," especially when I'm asked to do anything outside of it that I don't want to do!

_IN THE CARS._

"Palace cars" are a great invention for mothers with uneasy babies, for invalids, and for lovers. But as I am in neither of the above positions, allow me to express a preference for a seat in the common car. If I _am_ to eat in public out of my luncheon basket, I prefer a large audience, with their backs to me, to a small one employed in looking down my throat. Then if I wish to go to sleep, again the audience have their backs to me. Or if I wish to read, they are not holding a coroner's inquest on my politics, or my literary taste in books. Then, again, although _I_ want to pa.s.s unnoticed, yet with the lovely consistency of human nature generally, I like to observe life around me, and have enough of it to observe, too.

One result of my observations in this line has been the necessity of supporting a travelling missionary, to take from the necks of little children, in a hot car, the woollen m.u.f.flers that are turning their faces brick red, and the woollen mittens that are driving them wild, while their fond parents are absorbed in looking at ill.u.s.trated papers, to get a s.n.a.t.c.hed _free_ reading before the carrier returns for the same. It is very funny how they will let these children wriggle and twist and turn, like little worms, and never think that anything can be the matter, save a lack of peanuts or painted lozenges, which they procure with a fiendish haste, and bestow with a profusion astounding to G.o.ds and _some_ women. Presently the little victims call for "a drink of water," as well they may, with their feverish throats and mouths; but that only makes matters worse; so, by way of a.s.suagement, a wedge of mince-pie is added, or a huge doughnut, supplemented by parched corn.

"Ye G.o.ds!" I mentally exclaim; and yet we keep on sending "missionaries to the _heathen_." I am not there at the journey's end to see how those children's ears are boxed for growing devilish on such fare, but I know it is done all the same by these ignorant parents. It is refreshing occasionally to hear a father or mother say to a child, "If you are hungry, you can eat this nice piece of bread and b.u.t.ter, or this bit of chicken, but you must not eat nuts, candy, pastry, and cake, when you are travelling." It is refreshing to hear one say, "Eat _slowly_, dear."

It is refreshing to see one take off a child's hat or cap, and lay the little owner comfortably down for the little nap, instead of letting the child bob its tired, heated head vainly in every direction for rest. Now papa understands well enough in his own case what to do, in the way of alleviation; but children are bundled up like so many packages, on starting--labelled, ticketed--and, like these packages, not to be untied through any diversities of temperature till the b.u.mping journey's end.

It is monstrous! I am glad they kick all night after it--if so be their parents sleep with them!

But isn't it great, when, in addition to all these inflictions, a book-vender comes round and tries to make you buy one of your own books?

That is the last ounce on the camel's back! How all its shortcomings and crudenesses come up before you! How all its "Errata!" How short you cut that wretched boy in his parrot panegyric! How you perspire with disgust till he takes it out of your sight and hearing, and how you pray "just Heaven" to forgive you for your sins of commission, all for bread and b.u.t.ter.

Now--as the story writers say when they drag in a moral by the head and shoulders, at the end of their narratives--"my object is accomplished, if the perusal of this, etc., shall have induced but _one_ reader to reform, and lead a different life!"

So _I_ say, if only one wretched little young one gets his dangling legs put up on the seat; or his hot woollen tippet unwound from his strangled neck, or is refused candy and lozenges, or is fed wholesomely at proper intervals, instead of keeping up a continuous chewing all through the day; or don't get spanked afterward for the inevitable results; or if I have dissuaded but one individual from buying a book with "Fern" on its covers, my object will have been accomplished!

_PETTING._

In the course of my reading, I came upon this sentence the other day:

"I have thought a great deal lately upon a kind of petting women demand, that does not seem to me wholesome or well.

Even the strongest women require perpetual indors.e.m.e.nt, or they lose heart. Can they not be strong in a purpose, though it bring neither kiss nor commendation?"

It seems to me that this writer cannot have pa.s.sed out of sight of her or his own chimney, not to have seen the great army of women, wives of drunken and dissipated husbands, who, not only lacking "kiss and commendation," but receiving in place of them kicks and blows, and profane abuse, keep steadily on, performing their hard, inexorable duties with no human recognition of their heroism. Also, there are wives, clad in purple and fine linen, quite as much to be pitied, whose husbands are a disgrace to manhood, though they themselves may fail in no wifely or motherly duty. Blind indeed must that person be who fails to see all this every hour in the twenty-four.

So much for the truth of the remark. Now as to "petting." That woman is no woman--lacks woman's, I had almost said, _chiefest_ charm--who does not love to be "petted." The very women who stifle their hearts' cries, because it is vain to listen for an answer where they had a sacred right to look for it, and go on performing their duty all the same--if it be their duty--are the women who most long for "petting," and _who best deserve it too_; and I, for one, have yet to learn that it is anything to be ashamed of. If so, men have a great sin on their souls; for they cannot get along at all--the majority of them--without this very sort of bolstering up.

Read any of the thousand and one precious books on "Advice to Women,"

and you will see how we are all to be up to time on the front door-step, ready to "smile" at our husbands the minute the poor dears come home, lest they lose heart and doubt our love for them; better for the twins to cry, than the husband and father. Just so with advice to young girls.

They must always be on hand to mend rips in their brothers' gloves and tempers, and coddle them generally; but I have yet to see the book which enjoins upon brothers to be chivalric and courteous and gentlemanly to their sisters, as they take pleasure and pride in being to other young men's sisters.

"There is a time for everything," the good Book says, and so there is a time and place to be "petted." None of us want it in public. In fact, the men and women guilty of it render themselves liable to the suspicion of _only_ being affectionate in public. But deliver me from the granite woman who _prefers_ to live without it, who prides herself on not wanting it. I wouldn't trust her with my baby were there a knife handy.

Thank G.o.d there are few such. The n.o.blest and greatest and best women I have ever known, have been big-hearted and loving, and have known how to pet and _be_ "petted," without losing either strength or dignity of character.

FACING A THIN CONGREGATION.--It is comparatively easy for a clergyman to preach to a full audience; but the test which shows whether one's heart is in his work, is to get up and face a thin congregation, and yet deliver his message with an earnestness which shows that he has a realizing sense of the value of even _one_ soul. Only that clergyman who keeps this at all times in view, can so utterly leave himself out of consideration, that he will be just as eloquent and just as earnest when speaking to a thin audience, as if he were addressing a large mult.i.tude, from whose eager, upturned faces he might well draw inspiration.

_MY GRIEVANCE._

Some jilted bachelor has remarked that "no woman is happy unless she has a grievance." Taking this view of the case, it seems to me that men generally deserve great praise for their a.s.siduity in furnishing this alleged requisite of feminine felicity. But that is not what I was going to talk about. _I_ have "a grievance." My _fly_ has come! I say _my_ fly, because, as far as I can find out, he never goes to anybody else; he is indifferent to the most attractive visitor; what he wants is _me_--alas! _me_--_only_ me! The tortures I have endured from that creature, no pen, tongue, or dictionary can ever express. His sleepless, untiring, relentless persecution of a harmless female is quite fiendish.

His deliberate choice, and persistent retention of agonizing t.i.tillating perches, shows a depth of "strategy" unequalled in one so young. Raps, slaps, exclamations not in the hymn-book, handkerchief waving, sudden startings to the feet--what do they all avail me? He dogs me like a bailiff, from one corner of the room to another. All the long, hot day he attends my steps; all night he hovers over my couch, ready for me at the first glimmer of daybreak. The marvellous life-preserving way he has of dodging instant and vengeful annihilation, would excite my admiration, were not all my faculties required to soothe my nose after his repeated visits. In vain I pull my hair over my ears to shield them.

In vain I try to decoy him into saucers of sweet things while I write.

Down goes my pen, while my hands fly like the wings of a windmill in the vain attempt to dislodge him permanently. In vain I open the door, in the hope he may be tempted out. In vain I seat myself by the open window, trusting he will join the festive throng of happy Christian flies, whizzing in the open air in squads, and harming n.o.body. If he would _only_ go, you know, I would clap down my window, and die of stifling, rather than of his harrowing tickling. See there! he goes just near enough to raise my hopes, and then lights on the back of my neck. I slap him--he retires an instant--I throw my slipper after him--it breaks my Cologne bottle, and he comes back and alights on my nostril. Look!

here! I'm getting mad; now I'll just sit calmly down in that arm-chair, and fix my eyes on that Madonna, and _let_ him bite. _Some time_ he will surely get enough, and now I'll just stand it as long as he can.

Heavens! no, I can't; he is _inside_ my ear! Now, as I'm a sinner, I'll tell you what I'll do. Good! I'll go a journey, and lose him! I'll go to Lake George. Saints and angels, don't he follow me there too? To Niagara--do the rapids rid me of him? To the White Mountains? Don't he ascend with me? To the sea-sh.o.r.e? Is he afraid of the seventh wave?

Look here! a thought strikes me. Do you suppose that fly would cross Jordan with me? for I can't stand this thing much longer.

STANDING ALONE.--Thank Heaven, _I_ can stand alone! Can you? Are you yet at the end of your life journey? Have you yet stood over the dead body of wife or child, s.n.a.t.c.hed from you when life was at the flood-tide of happiness? Did you ever close your weary eyes to the bright dawn of a new day, and pray that you might never live to look at another? If a woman, did you ever face poverty where luxury had been, and vainly look hither and thither for the summer friends that you would never see again till larder and coffer were replenished? Are you _sure_, when you boast that you can "stand alone," that you have learned also how to _fall alone_?

_CEMETERY MUSINGS._

When I am in a new place I always stroll into its princ.i.p.al cemetery. I fancy that the average age of the dead tells its own story of the healthfulness of the neighborhood, or the contrary. The style of monumental inscription is also a good test of its educational and moral progress. One delicious morning in July, I pa.s.sed through the gateway of the beautiful cemetery in the town of ----. Little birds were pluming themselves on the moss-grown tombstones, or alighting, with eye askance, on the pathway before me, or swaying on some light branch and singing as if there were no such thing as sorrow or death in this bright world; while the sunbeams slanted down through the trees, touching the half-effaced inscriptions, as if lovingly, for the "stranger within the gate." Now and then one heard the click of the chisel, as some new name was being added to those already inscribed there; while in the distance the mowers were busy, scythe in hand, laying low the tall gra.s.s, as they carefully touched the many graves, and recited little homely histories of those whom the Great Reaper had garnered. Little children were playing innocently about, with eyes like gems, and flowing locks, and graceful, gliding steps, now and then stooping to inhale the flowers, or spell out with pretty blunders a pa.s.sing inscription. Go not there, my little ones--_that_ inscription is not for you--your G.o.d is love.

Into His hand yours is now placed confidingly, lead wheresoever He may, to fall asleep on His bosom in His own good time. Why should _you_ read, "Prepare each day the funeral shroud." Why should you fetter your simple, sweet faith in "Our Father" by chains of _fear_, through which, all your lifetime, you "should be subject to bondage"? Why for _you_ should skulls be disinterred and dry bones held up to startle and affright? Step away, little children. Think not of "shrouds" and "coffins;" _this_ is the lesson He taught you: "Little children, love one another." When He giveth His beloved sleep, neither you nor I shall know, nor does it matter.

And as I moved through this lovely place, breathing of beauty, and balm, and the song of birds, and the scent of flowers, I said to myself, Oh why, when the warm, throbbing heart of life is so slow to comprehend the _unseen_, and so tenaciously clings to the things seen, should it have _hindrance_, instead of help, in its efforts to spell out _immortality_!

Why fetter it from childhood with those gloomy clogs and burdens? How many _good_ men and _good_ women have struggled vainly through a lifetime with these physical, funereal terrors. And so I turned away to the graves of the "Little Annies" and "Little Freddys," where love had placed its freshly gathered flowers, and said: "_This is wiser; this is better._"

_THE SCRUBBING-BRUSH MANIA._

Did you ever see a woman who was possessed by the house-cleaning fiend?

Not periodically, but at all times. Who would go about drawing her finger over every lounge, and table, and chair, speering into cracks and crannies for crooked pins and lint; holding tumblers up to the light for finger marks; in short, so utterly absorbed in the pursuit of dirt that every other pursuit was as nothing in comparison.

Now, being New England born, I know what neatness is, and value it as only a New Englander can; but when it takes such shape as this, and robs life of all its charms, I turn my back upon it with righteous disgust.

Who thanks these zealous furies for their self-imposed labors? Certainly not their husbands, who flee into remote corners from dust-pans and dust-brushes, and weary of the recitals of their prowess day by day.

Certainly not their children, who have no place to stow away their little sacred property in the shape of bright bits of silk or paper, or broken cups, which are dear and precious to them, and should always be held in respect within proper, innocent limits.

Oh, ye careful and troubled Marthas of the household, stop and take breath. Place a flower on the mantel, that you and your household may perhaps have some in their lives. While you stop to rest, read. So shall the cobwebs be brushed from your neglected brain, and you shall learn that something else besides cleanliness is necessary to make home _really_ home for those dependent on your care.

Throw your broom out of doors; take your children by the hand, and let the fresh wind touch your wrinkled forehead. If your house is wound up to such an immaculate pitch of cleanliness, it can run on a few hours without your care. Laugh and talk with them, or better still, listen to their foolish-wise talk. Bring home a bit of gingerbread for each of them, and play some simple game with them. Put on the freshest dress you have, and ask your husband, when he comes in, if he recognizes his wife.