Fashion and Famine Part 1

Fashion and Famine.

by Ann S. Stephens.

Preface.

What shall I say in this Preface to my book? Shall I make the usual half-sincere, half-affected apology of haste and inexperience, with hints of improvement in future efforts? Indeed I cannot, for though this volume really is the first novel ever printed in book form under my name, its imperfections, whatever they are, arise from no inexperience or undue haste, but from absolute lack of power to accomplish that which I have undertaken. Nor is it probable that the points in which I have failed here, would be very greatly improved were the same book to be written again.

I have endeavored to make this book a good one. If I have failed it is because the power has not been granted to me by the Source of all power, and for deficiency like this, the only admissible apology would be for having written at all. But excuses are out of place here. The book, with all its faults, is frankly surrendered to the public judgment, asking neither favoritism or forbearance, save that favoritism which deals gently with unintentional error, and that forbearance which no American ever withholds from a woman. Shall I say that this volume is launched on the world with fear and trembling? That would express an ungrateful want of faith in a cla.s.s of readers who have generously sustained me through years of literary toil, and have n.o.bly supported not only Peterson's Ladies' National Magazine now under my charge, but every periodical with which I have been connected. It would be ungrateful to the press that, without a single respectable exception, has always dealt generously by me, and would betray a weakness of character which I am not willing to acknowledge, for I have lived long enough to tremble at nothing which results from an honest intention, and to fear nothing but deserved disgrace--the death of beloved objects--or change in those affections that no literary fame or misfortune can ever reach.

But it is not without emotions that I present this book to the public, grateful and sweet emotions that liberal minds must respect more than a thousand insincere apologies. The thoughts of an author are the perfume of her own soul going forth on the winds of heaven to awaken other souls and renew itself in their kindred sympathies. I am more anxious for the effect which these thoughts, so long a portion of my own being, will have upon others, than for the return they may bring to myself. The American people are, in the ma.s.s, just and intelligent judges; always generous and perhaps over-indulgent to their authors. In writing this book I have endeavored to deserve their approbation and to cast no discredit upon a profession that I honor more than any other upon the broad earth. If I have succeeded, no human being can be more grateful than I shall be for the public opinion that a.s.sures me of it; but, to satisfy even my humble ambition, it must be an opinion honestly earned and frankly given. Popularity won without merit, and lost without blame, would be valueless to me, even while it lasted.

New York, May 22, 1854.

CHAPTER I.

THE STRAWBERRY GIRL.

Like wild flowers on the mountain side, Goodness may be of any soil; Yet intellect, in all its pride, And energy, with pain and toil, Hath never wrought a holier thing Than Charity in humble birth.

G.o.d's brightest angel stoops his wing, To meet so much of Heaven on earth.

The morning had not fully dawned on New York, yet its approach was visible everywhere amid the fine scenery around the city. The dim shadows piled above Weehawken, were warming up with purple, streaked here and there with threads of rosy gold. The waters of the Hudson heaved and rippled to the glow of yellow and crimson light, that came and went in flashes on each idle curl of the waves. Long Island lay in the near distance like a thick, purplish cloud, through which the dim outline of house, tree, mast and spire loomed mistily, like half-formed objects on a camera obscura.

Silence--that strange, dead silence that broods over a scene crowded with slumbering life--lay upon the city, broken only by the rumble of vegetable carts and the jar of milk-cans, as they rolled up from the different ferries; or the half-smothered roar of some steamboat putting into its dock, freighted with sleeping pa.s.sengers.

After a little, symptoms of aroused life became visible about the wharves. Grocers, carmen, and huckster-women began to swarm around the provision boats. The markets nearest the water were opened, and soon became theatres of active bustle.

The first market opened that day was in Fulton street. As the morning deepened, piles of vegetables, loads of beef, hampers of fruit, heaps of luscious b.u.t.ter, cages of poultry, canary birds swarming in their wiry prisons, forests of green-house plants, horse-radish grinders with their reeking machines, venders of hot coffee, root beer and dough nuts, all with men, women and children swarming in, over and among them, like so many ants, hard at work, filled the s.p.a.cious arena, but late a range of silent, naked and gloomy looking stalls. Then carts, laden and groaning beneath a weight of food, came rolling up to this great mart, crowding each avenue with fresh supplies. All was life and eagerness. Stout men and bright-faced women moved through the verdant chaos, arranging, working, chatting, all full of life and enterprise, while the rattling of carts outside, and the gradual acc.u.mulation of sounds everywhere, bespoke a great city aroused, like a giant refreshed, from slumber.

Slowly there arose out of this cheerful confusion, forms of homely beauty, that an artist or a thinking man might have loved to look upon.

The butchers' stalls, but late a desolate range of gloomy beams, were reddening with fresh joints, many of them festooned with fragrant branches and gorgeous garden flowers. The butchers standing, each by his stall, with snow-white ap.r.o.n, and an eager, joyous look of traffic on his face, formed a display of comfort and plenty, both picturesque and pleasant to contemplate.

The fruit and vegetable stands were now loaded with damp, green vegetables, each humble root having its own peculiar tint, often arranged with a singular taste for color, unconsciously possessed by the woman who exercised no little skill in setting off her stand to advantage.

There was one vegetable stand to which we would draw the reader's particular attention; not exactly as a type of the others, for there was something so unlike all the rest, both in this stall and its occupant, that it would have drawn the attention of any person possessed of the slightest artistical taste. It was like the arrangement of a picture, that long table heaped with fruit, the freshest vegetables, and the brightest flowers, ready for the day's traffic. Rich scarlet radishes glowing up through their foliage of tender green, were contrasted with young onions swelling out from their long emerald stalks, snowy and transparent as so many great pearls. Turnips, scarcely larger than a hen's egg, and nearly as white, just taken fresh and fragrant from the soil, lay against heads of lettuce, tinged with crisp and greenish gold, piled against the deep blackish green of spinach and water-cresses, all moist with dew, or wet with bright water-drops that had supplied its place, and taking a deeper tint from the golden contrast. These with the red glow of strawberries in their luscious prime, piled together in ma.s.ses, and shaded with fresh grape leaves; bouquets of roses, hyacinths, violets, and other fragrant blossoms, lent their perfume and the glow of their rich colors to the coa.r.s.er children of the soil, and would have been an object pleasant to look upon, independent of the fine old woman who sat complacently on her little stool, at one end of the table, in tranquil expectation of customers that were sure to drop in as the morning deepened.

And now the traffic of the day commenced in earnest. Servants, housekeepers and grocers swarmed into the market. The clink of money--the sound of sharp, eager banter--the dull noise of the butcher's cleaver, were heard on every hand. It was a pleasant scene, for every face looked smiling and happy. The soft morning air seemed to have brightened all things into cheerfulness.

With the earliest group that entered Fulton market that morning was a girl, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, but tiny in her form, and appearing far more juvenile than that. A pretty quilted hood, of rose-colored calico, was turned back from her face, which seemed naturally delicate and pale; but the fresh air, and perhaps a shadowy reflection from her hood, gave the glow of a rose-bud to her cheeks.

Still there was anxiety upon her young face. Her eyes of a dark violet blue, drooped heavily beneath their black and curling lashes, if any one from the numerous stalls addressed her; for a small splint basket on her arm, new and perfectly empty, was a sure indication that the child had been sent to make purchase; while her timid air--the blush that came and went on her face--bespoke as plainly that she was altogether unaccustomed to the scene, and had no regular place at which to make her humble bargains. The child seemed a waif cast upon the market; and she was so beautiful, notwithstanding her humble dress of faded and darned calico, that at almost every stand she was challenged pleasantly to pause and fill her basket. But she only cast down her eyes and blushed more deeply, as with her little bare feet she hurried on through the labyrinth of stalls, toward that portion of the market occupied by the huckster-women. Here she began to slacken her pace, and to look about her with no inconsiderable anxiety.

"What do you want, little girl; anything in my way?" was repeated to her once or twice, as she moved forward. At each of these challenges she would pause, look earnestly into the face of the speaker, and then pa.s.s on with a faint wave of the head, that expressed something of sad and timid disappointment.

At length the child--for she seemed scarcely more than that--was growing pale, and her eyes turned with a sort of sharp anxiety from one face to another, when suddenly they fell upon the buxom old huckster-woman, whose stall we have described. There was something in the good dame's appearance that brought an eager and satisfied look to that pale face.

She drew close to the stand, and stood for some seconds, gazing timidly on the old woman. It was a pleasant face, and a comfortable, portly form enough, that the timid girl gazed upon. Smooth and comely were the full and rounded cheeks, with their rich autumn color, dimpled like an over-ripe apple. Fat and good humored enough to defy wrinkles, the face looked far too rosy for the thick, gray hair that was shaded, not concealed, by a cap of clear white muslin, with a broad, deep border, and tabs that met like a snowy girth to support the firm, double chin.

Never did your eyes dwell upon a chin so full of health and good humor as that. It sloped with a sleek, smiling grace down from the plump mouth, and rolled with a soft, white wave into the neck, scarcely leaving an outline, or the want of one, before it was lost in the white of that muslin kerchief, folded so neatly beneath the ample bosom of her gown. Then the broad linen ap.r.o.n of blue and white check, girding her waist, and flowing over the smooth rotundity of person, was a living proof of the ripeness and wholesome state of her merchandise.--I tell you, reader, that woman, take her for all in all, was one to draw the attention, aye, and the love of a child, who had come forth barefooted and alone in search of kindness.

At length the huckster-woman saw the child gazing upon her with a look so earnest, that she was quite startled by it. She also caught a glance at the empty basket, and her little brown eyes twinkled at the promise of a new customer.

"Well, my dear, what do you want this morning?" she said, smoothing her ap.r.o.n with a pair of plump, little hands, and casting a well satisfied look over her stall, and then at the girl, who grew pale at her notice, and began to tremble visibly--"all sorts of vegetables, you see--flowers--strawberries--radishes--what will you have, child?"

The little girl crept round to where the woman stood, and speaking in a low, frightened voice, said--

"Please, ma'm, I want you to trust me!"

"Trust you!" said the woman, with a soft laugh that shook her double chin, and dimpled her cheeks. "Why, I don't know you, little one--what on earth do you want trust for? Lost the market money, hey, and afraid of a scolding--is that it?"

"No, no, I haven't lost any money," said the child eagerly; "please ma'm, just stoop down one minute, while I tell you!"

The little girl in her earnestness took hold of the woman's ap.r.o.n, and she, kind soul, sunk back to her stool: it was the most comfortable way of listening.

"I--I live with grandfather and grandmother, ma'm; they are old and poor--you don't know how poor; for he, grandpa, has been sick, and--it seems strange--I eat as much as any of them. Well, ma'm, I tried to get something to do, but you see how little I am; n.o.body will think me strong enough, even to tend baby; so we have all been without anything to eat, since day before yesterday."

"Poor thing!" muttered the huckster-woman, "poor thing!"

"Well, ma'm, I must do something. I can bear anything better than seeing them hungry. I did not sleep a wink all last night, but kept thinking what I should do. I never begged in my life; _they_ never did; and it made me feel sick to think of it; but I could have done it rather than see them sit and look at each other another day. Did you ever see an old man cry for hunger, ma'm?"

"No, no, G.o.d forbid!" answered the dame, brushing a plump hand across her eyes.

"I have," said the child, with a sob, "and it was this that made me think that begging, after all, was not so very, very mean. So, this morning, I asked them to let me go out; but grandpa said he might go himself, if he were strong enough; but I never should--never--never!"

"Nice old man--nice old man!" said the huckster-woman.

"I did not ask again," resumed the child, "for an idea had come into my head in the night. I have seen little girls, no older than I am, selling radishes and strawberries, and things."

"Yes--yes, I understand!" said the old woman, and her eyes began to twinkle the more brightly that they were wet before.

"But I had no strawberries to sell, nor a cent of money to buy them with!"

"Well! well!"

"Not even a basket!"

"Poor thing!"

"But I was determined to do something. So I went to a grocery, where grandpa used to buy things when he had money, and they trusted me with this basket."

"That was very kind of them!"

"Wasn't it very kind?" said the child, her eyes brightening, "especially as I told them it was all myself--that grandpa knew nothing about it.

See what a nice new basket it is--you can't think how much courage it gave me. When I came into the market it seemed as if I shouldn't be afraid to ask anybody about trusting me a little."

"And yet you came clear to this side without stopping to ask anybody?"