Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Part 7

"'Yes, yes,' said she, falling into a muse, as she attempted to recover the thread of her story.

"'Ma'am, shall I put the pork on the top of the beans?' asked Mina.

"'Come, come,' said Harriet, laughing. 'You see how it is. Mina is a new hand and cannot do anything without me to direct her. We must give up the writing for to-day.'

"'No, no; let us have another trial. You can dictate as easily as you can write. Come, I can set the baby in this clothes-basket and give him some mischief or other to keep him quiet; you shall dictate and I will write. Now, this is the place where you left off: you were describing the scene between Ellen and her lover; the last sentence was, "Borne down by the tide of agony, she leaned her head on her hands, the tears streamed through her fingers, and her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs." What shall I write next?'

"'Mina, pour a little milk into this pearlash,' said Harriet.

"'Come,' said I. '"The tears streamed through her fingers and her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs." What next?'

"Harriet paused and looked musingly out of the window, as she turned her mind to her story. 'You may write now,' said she, and she dictated as follows:

"'"Her lover wept with her, nor dared he again to touch the point so sacredly guarded"--Mina, roll that crust a little thinner. "He spoke in soothing tones"--Mina, poke the coals in the oven.'

"'Here,' said I, 'let me direct Mina about these matters, and write a while yourself.'

"Harriet took the pen and patiently set herself to the work. For a while my culinary knowledge and skill were proof to all Mina's investigating inquiries, and they did not fail till I saw two pages completed.

"'You have done bravely,' said I, as I read over the ma.n.u.script; 'now you must direct Mina a while. Meanwhile dictate and I will write.'

"Never was there a more docile literary lady than my friend. Without a word of objection she followed my request.

"'I am ready to write,' said I. 'The last sentence was: "What is this life to one who has suffered as I have?" What next?'

"'Shall I put in the brown or the white bread first?' said Mina.

"'The brown first,' said Harriet.

"'"What is this life to one who has suffered as I have?"' said I.

"Harriet brushed the flour off her ap.r.o.n and sat down for a moment in a muse. Then she dictated as follows:--

"'"Under the breaking of my heart I have borne up. I have borne up under all that tries a woman,--but this thought,--oh, Henry!"'

"'Ma'am, shall I put ginger into this pumpkin?' queried Mina.

"'No, you may let that alone just now,' replied Harriet. She then proceeded:--

"'"I know my duty to my children. I see the hour must come. You must take them, Henry; they are my last earthly comfort."'

"'Ma'am, what shall I do with these egg-sh.e.l.ls and all this truck here?' interrupted Mina.

"'Put them in the pail by you,' answered Harriet. "'"They are my last earthly comfort,"' said I. 'What next?'

"She continued to dictate,--

"'"You must take them away. It may be---perhaps it _must_ be--- that I shall soon follow, but the breaking heart of a wife still pleads, 'a little longer, a little longer.'"'

"'How much longer must the gingerbread stay in?' inquired Mina.

"'Five minutes,' said Harriet.

"'"A little longer, a little longer,"' I repeated in a dolorous tone, and we burst into a laugh.

"Thus we went on, cooking, writing, nursing, and laughing, till I finally accomplished my object. The piece was finished, copied, and the next day sent to the editor."

The widely scattered members of the Beecher family had a fashion of communicating with each other by means of circular letters. These, begun on great sheets of paper, at either end of the line, were pa.s.sed along from one to another, each one adding his or her budget of news to the general stock. When the filled sheet reached the last person for whom it was intended, it was finally remailed to its point of departure. Except in the cases of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Perkins, the simple address "Rev. Mr. Beecher" was sufficient to insure its safe delivery in any town to which it was sent.

One of these great, closely-written sheets, bearing in faded ink the names of all the Beechers, lies outspread before us as we write. It is postmarked Hartford, Conn., Batavia, N. Y., Chillicothe, Ohio, Zanesville, Ohio, Walnut Hills, Ohio, Indianapolis, Ind., Jacksonville, Ill., and New Orleans, La. In it Mrs. Stowe occupies her allotted s.p.a.ce with--

WALNUT HILLS, 27,1839.

DEAR FRIENDS,---I am going to Hartford myself, and therefore shall not write, but hurry along the preparations for my forward journey. Belle, father says you may go to the White Mountains with Mr. Stowe and me this summer. George, we may look in on you coming back. Good-by.

Affectionately to all, H. E. STOWE.

CHAPTER V.

POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.

FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS FOR LITERARY WORK.-- EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH OF HER BROTHER GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND DESPAIR.--A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO'

WATERCURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE SEMINARY.---CHOLERA IN CINCINNATI.--DEATH OF YOUNGEST CHILD.---DETERMINED TO LEAVE THE WEST.

On January 7, 1839, Professor Stowe wrote to his mother in Natick, Ma.s.s.: "You left here, I believe, in the right time, for as there has been no navigation on the Ohio River for a year, we are almost in a state of famine as to many of the necessities of life. For example, salt (coa.r.s.e) has sold in Cincinnati this winter for three dollars a bushel; rice eighteen cents a pound; coffee fifty cents a pound; white sugar the same; brown sugar twenty cents; mola.s.ses a dollar a gallon; potatoes a dollar a bushel. We do without such things mostly; as there is yet plenty of bread and bacon (flour six and seven dollars a barrel, and good pork from six to eight cents a pound) we get along very comfortably.

"Our new house is pretty much as it was, but they say it will be finished in July. I expect to visit you next summer, as I shall deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Dartmouth College; but whether wife and children come with me or not is not yet decided."

Mrs. Stowe came on to the East with her husband and children during the following summer, and before her return made a trip through the White Mountains.

In May, 1840, her second son was born and named Frederick William, after the st.u.r.dy Prussian king, for whom her husband cherished an unbounded admiration.

Mrs. Stowe has said somewhere: "So we go, dear reader, so long as we have a body and a soul. For worlds must mingle,--the great and the little, the solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out like the grotesque carvings on a gothic shrine; only did we know it rightly, nothing is trivial, since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes all things sacred." So in writing a biography it is impossible for us to tell what did and what did not powerfully influence the character.

It is safer simply to tell the unvarnished truth. The lily builds up its texture of delicate beauty from mould and decay. So how do we know from what humble material a soul grows in strength and beauty!

In December, 1840, writing to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe says:--

"For a year I have held the pen only to write an occasional business letter such as could not be neglected. This was primarily owing to a severe neuralgic complaint that settled in my eyes, and for two months not only made it impossible for me to use them in writing, but to fix them with attention on anything. I could not even bear the least light of day in my room. Then my dear little Frederick was born, and for two months more I was confined to my bed. Besides all this, we have had an unusual amount of sickness in our family... .

"For all that my history of the past year records so many troubles, I cannot on the whole regard it as a very troublous one. I have had so many counterbalancing mercies that I must regard myself as a person greatly blessed. It is true that about six months out of the twelve I have been laid up with sickness, but then I have had every comfort and the kindest of nurses in my faithful Anna. My children have thriven, and on the whole 'come to more,' as the Yankees say, than the care of them. Thus you see my troubles have been but enough to keep me from loving earth too well."

In the spring of 1842 Mrs. Stowe again visited Hartford, taking her six-year-old daughter Hatty with her. In writing from there to her husband she confides some of her literary plans and aspirations to him, and he answers:--

"My dear, you must be a literary woman. It is so written in the book of fate. Make all your calculations accordingly. Get a good stock of health and brush up your mind. Drop the E. out of your name. It only inc.u.mbers it and interferes with the flow and euphony. Write yourself fully and always Harriet Beecher Stowe, which is a name euphonious, flowing, and full of meaning. Then my word for it, your husband will lift up his head in the gate, and your children will rise up and call you blessed.

"Our humble dwelling has to-day received a distinguished honor of which I must give you an account. It was a visit from his excellency the Baron de Roenne, amba.s.sador of his majesty the King of Prussia to the United States. He was pleased to a.s.sure me of the great satisfaction my report on Prussian schools had afforded the king and members of his court, with much more to the same effect. Of course having a real live lord to exhibit, I was anxious for some one to exhibit him to; but neither Aunt Esther nor Anna dared venture near the study, though they both contrived to get a peep at his lordship from the little chamber window as he was leaving.