Fashion and Famine Part 21

It is pleasant to draw round the table, When uncles and cousins are there, And grandpa, who scarcely is able, Sits down in his old oaken chair!

It is pleasant to wait for the blessing, With a heart free from malice and strife, While a turkey, that's portly with dressing, Lies, meekly awaiting the knife.

Amid all the varieties of architecture--Grecian, Gothic, Swiss, Chinese, and even Egyptian, to be met with on Long Island, there yet may be found some genuine old farms, with barns instead of carriage-houses, and cow sheds in the place of pony stables. To these old houses are still attached generous gardens, hedged in with picket fences, and teeming with vegetables, and front yards full of old-fashioned shrubbery, with thick gra.s.s half a century old mossing them over. These things, primitive, and full of the olden times, are not yet crowded out of sight by sloping lawns, gravel walks, and newly acclimated flowers; and if they do not so vividly appeal to the taste, those, who have hearts, sometimes find them softened by these relicts of the past, to warmer and sweeter feelings than mere fancy ever aroused.

One of these old houses, a low roofed, unpretending dwelling, exhibiting unmistakable evidence of what had once been white paint on the edges of its clap-boards, and crowned by a huge stone chimney, whose generous throat seemed half choked up with swallows' nests, belonged to a character in our story which the reader cannot have forgotten without breaking the author's heart.

It was autumn--but a generous, balmy autumn, that seemed to cajole and flatter the summer into keeping it company close up to Christmas. True, the gorgeous tints of a late Indian summer lay richly among the trees, but some patches of bright green were still left, defying the season, and putting aside, from day to day, the red and golden veil which the frost was constantly endeavoring to cast over them.

In front of the old house stood two maples--n.o.ble trees, such as have had no time to root themselves around your modern cottages. These maples, symmetrical as a pair of huge pine cones, rose against the house a perfect cloud of gorgeous foliage. One was red as blood, and with a dash of the most vivid green still keeping its hold down the centre of each leaf--the other golden all over, as if its roots were nourished in the metallic soil of California, and its leaves dusted by the winds that drift up gold in the valley of Sacramento. These superb trees blended and wove their ripe leaves together, now throwing out a wave of red, now a ma.s.s of gold, and here a tinge of green in splendid confusion.

All around, under these maples, the gra.s.s was littered with a fantastic carpet of leaves, showered down from their branches. They hung around the huge old lilac bushes. They fluttered down to the rose thickets, and lay in patches of torn crimson and crumpled gold among the house-leeks and mosses on the roof.

In and out, through this shower of ripe leaves, fluttered the swallows.

In and out along the heavy branches, darted a pair of red squirrels, who owned a nest in one of the oldest and most stately trees. In and out, through the long, low kitchen, the parlor, the pantries, and the milk-room, went and came our old friend, Mrs. Gray, the comely huckster-woman of Fulton market. That house was hers. That great square garden at the back door was hers. How comfortable and harvest-like it lay, sloping down toward the south, divided into sections, crowded with parsnips, beets, onions, potatoes, raspberry thickets, and strawberry patches; in short, running over with a stock in trade that had furnished her market stall during the year.

The season was late. The frost had been there nipping, biting and pinching up the n.o.ble growth of vegetables that was to supply Mrs.

Gray's stall in the winter months. Half the great white onions lay above ground, with their silvery coats exposed. The beet beds were of a deep blackish crimson; and the cuc.u.mber vines had yielded up their last delicate gherkins. All her neighbors had gathered in their crops days ago, but the good old lady only laughed and chuckled over the example thus offered for her imitation. New England born and accustomed to the sharp east winds of Maine, she cared nothing for the petty frosts that only made the leaves of her beet and parsnip beds gorgeous, while their precious bulbs lay safely bedded in the soil. No matter what others did, she never gathered her garden crop till Thanksgiving. That was her harvest time, her great yearly jubilee--the season when her accounts were reckoned up--when her barns and cellars were running over with the wealth of her little farm.

Christmas, New Year, the Fourth of July, in short, all the holidays of the year were crowded into one with Mrs. Gray. During the whole twelve months, she commemorated Thanksgiving only. The reader must not, for a moment, suppose that the Thanksgiving Mrs. Gray loved to honor, was the miserable counterfeit of a holiday proclaimed by the governor of New York. No! Mrs. Gray scorned this poor attempt at imitation. It made her double chin quiver only to think of it. If ever a look of contempt crept into those benevolent eyes, it was when people would try to convince her that any governor out of New England, could enter into the spirit of a regular Down East Thanksgiving; or, that any woman, south of old Connecticut, could be educated into the culinary mysteries of a mince pie. Her faith was boundless, her benevolence great, but in these things Mrs. Gray could not force herself to believe.

You should have seen the old lady as Thanksgiving week drew near--not the New York one, but that solemnly proclaimed by the governor of Maine.

Mrs. Gray heeded no other. That week the woman of a neighboring stall took charge of Mrs. Gray's business. The customers were served by a strange hand; the brightness of her comely face was confined to her own roof tree. She gave thanks to G.o.d for the bounties of the earth, heartily, earnestly; but it was her pleasure to render these thanks after the fashion of her ancestors.

You should have seen her then, surrounded by raisins, black currants, pumpkin sauce, peeled apples, sugar boxes, and plates of golden b.u.t.ter, her plump hand pearly with flour dust, the whole kitchen redolent with ginger, allspice, and cloves! You should have seen her grating orange peel and nutmegs, the border of her snow-white cap rising and falling to the motion of her hands, and the soft gray hair underneath, tucked hurriedly back of the ear on one side, where it had threatened to be in the way.

You should have seen her in that large, splint-bottomed rocking-chair, with a wooden bowl in her capacious lap, and a sharp chopping-knife in her right hand; with what a soft, easy motion the chopping-knife fell!

with what a quiet and smiling air the dear old lady would take up a quant.i.ty of the powdered beef on the flat of her knife, and observe, as it showered softly down to the tray again, that "meat chopped too fine for mince pies was sure poison." Then the laugh--the quiet, mellow chuckle with which she regarded the astonished look of the Irish girl, who could not understand the mystery of this ancient saying.

Yes, you should have seen Mrs. Gray at this very time, in order to appreciate fully the perfections of an old-fashioned New England housewife. They are departing from the land. Railroads and steamboats are sweeping them away. In a little time, providing our humble tale is not first sent to oblivion, this very description will have the dignity of an antique subject. Women who cook their own dinners and take care of the work hands are getting to be legendary even now.

The day came at last, bland as the smile of a warm heart, a breath of summer seemed whispering with the over-ripe leaves. The sunshine was of that warm, golden yellow which belongs to the autumn. A few hardy flowers glowed in the front yard, richly tinted dahlias, marigolds, chrysanthemums, and China-asters, with the most velvety amaranths, still kept their bloom, for those huge old maples sheltered them like a tent, and flowers always blossomed later in that house than elsewhere. No wonder! Inside and out, all was pleasant and genial. The fall flowers seemed to thrive upon Mrs. Gray's smiles. Her rosy countenance, as she overlooked them, seemed to warm up their leaves like a sunbeam.

Everything grew and brightened about her. Everything combined to make this particular Thanksgiving one to be remembered.

Now, all was in fine progress, nothing had gone wrong, not even the awkward Irish girl, for she had only to see that the potatoes were in readiness, and for that department she was qualified by birth.

Mrs. Gray had done wonders that morning. The dinner was in a most hopeful state of preparation. The great red crested, imperious looking turkey, that had strutted away his brief life in the barn-yard, was now snugly bestowed in the oven--Mrs. Gray had not yet degenerated down to a cooking-stove--his heavy coat of feathers was scattered to the wind. His head, that arrogant, crimson head, that had so often awed the whole poultry yard, lay all unheeded in the dust, close by the horse-block.

There he sat, the poor denuded monarch--turned up in a dripping pan, simmering himself brown in the kitchen oven. Never, in all his pomp, had that bosom been so warmed and distended--yet the huge turkey had been a sad gourmand in his time. A rich thymy odor broke through every pore of his body; drops of luscious gravy dripped down his sides, filling the oven with an unctuous stream that penetrated a crevice in the door, and made the poor Irish girl cross herself devoutly. She felt her spirit so yearning after the good things of earth, and never having seen Thanksgiving set down in the calendar, was shy of surrendering her heart to a holiday that had no saint to patronize it.

No wonder! the odor that stole so insidiously to her nostrils was appetising, for the turkey had plenty of companionship in the oven. A n.o.ble chicken-pie flanked his dripping pan on the right; a delicate sucking pig was drawn up to the left wing; in the rear towered a mountain of roast beef, while the mouth of the oven was choked up with a generous Indian pudding. It was an ovenful worthy of New England, worthy of the day.

The hours came creeping on when guests might be expected. Mrs. Gray, who had been invisible a short time after filling the oven, appeared in the little parlor perfectly redolent with good humor, and a fresh toilet. A cap of the most delicate material, trimmed with satin ribbons, cast a transparent brightness over her bland and pleasant features. A dress of black silk, heavy and ample in the skirt, rustled round her portly figure as she walked. Folds of the finest muslin lay upon her bosom, in chaste contrast with the black dress, and just revealing a string of gold beads which had reposed for years beneath the caressing protection of her double chin.

Mrs. Gray, was ready for company, and tried her best to remain with proper dignity in the great rocking chair, that she had drawn to a window commanding a long stretch of the road; but every few moments she would start up, bustle across the room, and charge Kitty, the Irish girl, to be careful and watch the oven, to keep a sharp eye on the sauce-pans in the fire-place, and, above all, to have the mince pies within range of the fire, that they might receive a gradual and gentle warmth by the time they were wanted. Then she would return to the room, arrange the branches of asparagus that hung laden with red berries over the looking gla.s.s, or dust the spotless table with her handkerchief, just to keep herself busy, as she said.

At last she heard the distant sound of a wagon, turning down the cross road toward the house. She knew the tramp of her own market horse even at that distance, and seated herself by the window ready to receive her expected guests with becoming dignity.

The little one-horse wagon came down the road with a sort of dash quite honorable to the occasion. Mrs. Gray's hired man was beginning to enter into the spirit of a holiday; and the old horse himself made every thing rattle again, he was so eager to reach home, the moment it hove in sight.

The wagon drew up by the door yard gate with a flourish worthy of the Third avenue. The hired man sprang out, and with some show of awkward gallantry, lifted a young girl in a pretty pink calico and a cottage bonnet, down from the front seat. Mrs. Gray could maintain her position no longer; for the young girl glanced that way with a look so eloquent, a smile so bright, that it warmed the dear old lady's heart like a flash of fire in the winter time. She started up, hastily shook loose the folds of her dress, and went out, rustling all the way like a tree in autumn.

"You are welcome, dear, welcome as green peas in June, or radishes in March," she cried, seizing the little hand held toward her, and kissing the heavenly young face.

The girl turned with a bright look, and making a graceful little wave of the hand toward an aged man who was tenderly helping a female from the wagon, seemed about to speak.

"I understand, dear, I know all about it! the good old people--grandpa and grandma, of course. How could I help knowing them?" Mrs. Gray went up to the old people as she spoke, with a bland welcome in every feature of her face.

"Know them, of course I do!" she said, enfolding the old gentleman's hand with her plump fingers. "I--I--gracious goodness, now, it really does seem as if I had seen that face somewhere!" she added, hesitating, and with her eyes fixed doubtingly on the stranger, as if she were calling up some vague remembrance, "strange, now isn't it? but he looks natural as life."

The old man turned a warming glance toward his wife, and then answered, with a grave smile, "that, at any rate, Mrs. Gray could never be a stranger to them, she who had done so much----"

She interrupted him with one of her mellow laughs. Thanks for a kind act always made the good woman feel awkward, and she blushed like a girl. "No, no; but somehow I can't give it up; this isn't the first time we have seen each other!"

"I hope that it will not be the last!" said old Mrs. Warren, coming gently forward to her husband's a.s.sistance. "Julia has seen you so often, and talked of you so much--no wonder we seem like old acquaintances. I always thought Julia looked very much like her grandfather!"

"Yes, I reckon it must be that," answered Mrs. Gray, evidently but half giving up her prepossession. "Her face isn't one to leave the mind: I dreamed about it the first night after she came into the market, poor thing--poor thing!"

Mrs. Gray repeated the last words with great tenderness, for Julia Warren had crept close to her, and taking one of her hands, softly lifted it to her lips.

"Come, come, let us go in," cried the good woman, gently withdrawing her hand, with which she patted Julia on the shoulder. "There, there, pick your grandmother a handful of China-asters. I believe the frost left them just for you."

Julia was about to obey the welcome command, but her glance happened to fall on the face of her grandfather, and she hesitated. There was something troubled in his look, an expression of anxiety that struck her as remarkable.

"Grandpa, what is the matter?--you look pale!" she said, in a low voice, for, with delicate tact, she saw he wished to escape observation.

"Nothing, child, nothing," he answered hurriedly, but with kindness. "Do not mind me."

Julia cast one more anxious look into his face, and then stooped to the flowers. The old gentleman followed Mrs. Gray and his wife into the house.

"A sweet, pretty creature, isn't she?" said Mrs. Gray, watching Julia from the parlor window, after she had put aside Mrs. Warren's things; "and handsome as a picture! Just watch her now as she turns her face this way."

"You are kind to praise her," said Mrs. Warren, with a gentle smile; "you know how much it pleases us."

Mrs. Gray laughed and shook her head. "I know how much it pleases me, and that's all I think about it," she answered; and the two warm-hearted women stood together watching Julia as she gathered and arranged her humble bouquet.

The child did indeed look very lovely in her pink dress--only a shilling calico, but fresh and becoming for all that. You never saw a more interesting picture in your life. The long ringlets of her hair swept from underneath her bonnet, while its delicate rose-colored tinge and the ride had given her cheek a bloom fresh as an almond flower when it first opens. Still she was a slender, fragile little creature, and you saw that the rude winds of life had swept too early over her. Feeling and intellect had prematurely developed themselves in her nature. In her face--in her smile--in her eyes, with their beautiful curling lashes, there was something painfully spiritual. Within the last few months this expression had grown upon her wonderfully. Her loveliness was of a kind to make you thoughtful, sometimes even sad. Mrs. Gray felt all this without understanding it, and her heart yearned strangely toward the child.

"It's a truth," she said, addressing the grandmother. "I feel almost as if she were my own daughter, and yet I never had a child, and didn't use to care for other people's children much. I really believe that some day I shall up and give her these. It's come into my mind more than once, I can tell you, and yet they were my mother's, and her mother's before that." Here Mrs. Gray ran her fingers along the gold beads on her neck.

"It's strange, but I always want to be giving her something."

"You _are_ always giving her something," said Mrs. Warren, gratefully.

"No, no, nothing to speak of."

"That pretty dress and the bonnet--are they nothing?"

"And who told you that?--who told you they came from me?"