The American Gentleman's Guide to Politeness and Fashion Part 9

My hostess, though she kept an observant eye upon us, from her seat by her work-table over against my arm-chair, had too much tact to interfere with the proceedings of my ministering cherubs; except to prevent the possibility of my being annoyed.

When I had leisure to reconnoitre a little, I discovered, among the other fixtures in the large, well-lighted, cheerful-looking apartment, an old woman with a good-humored face and portly person, seated near a window, sewing, with a large, well-stored basket of unmended linen and hosiery before her.

Presently, the eldest son, a fine manly boy of some sixteen years entered, hat and cane in hand. Used, I suppose, to a jumble of faces and forms, in this human kaleidoscope, he evidently did not observe the quiet figure in the high-backed chair. "Mother," he exclaimed in a tone in which boyish animation and the utmost affection were singularly united, striding across the room, like the Colossus of Rhodes, suddenly endued with powers of locomotion: "Mother, you are the most beautiful and irresistible of your beautiful and irresistible s.e.x!" and stooping, he pressed his full, cherry lips gently upon her rounded cheek.

A flash of amus.e.m.e.nt, mingled with the love-light in the soft eyes that met those of the boy. He turned quickly. A scarcely-discernible embarra.s.sment of manner, and a quick flush in the bright young face, were all that I had time to note, before he was at my side with a cordial greeting and a playful welcome to "Mother's Land of Promise."

"Land of Nod, say rather," replied the presiding genius of the scene, pointing to the quiescent form of little Bessie, who--her curly head pillowed on her chubby arm--was just losing all consciousness of the world, upon the rug at her mother's feet.

"George, what an armful!" said the youth, in a sort of half undertone, as he tenderly lifted the little lay figure, and bore it to a crib.

"Don't get up, mother, I can cover her nicely. I say, mammy [an arch glance over his shoulder towards the ancient matron of the sewing-basket], how heavy bread and milk is, though, eh!"

"Speaking of bread and milk, here comes lunch," continued my hero for the nonce, rubbing his hands energetically, and only desisting to give a table the dextrous twirl that would bring it near his mother, and a.s.sist the labors of the servant who had entered with a tray.

"Will, you immense fellow, take yourself out of the way! Colonel, permit me to give your sedan-chair just the slightest impulse forward, and so save you the trouble of moving. My adorable mother, allow me the honor of being your Ganymede. Here we are, all right! Now, let's see what there is--ham, baked apples, cold roast beef, hot cocoa--not so bad, 'pon my word. Colonel, I hope this crispy morning has given you some appet.i.te, after your hard cold--allow me"--

"Mammy fust," here interposed little Will, authoritatively, "'cause she older dan us!" and, carefully holding the heaped-up plate his mother placed in both hands, he deliberately adventured an overland journey to the distant object of his affectionate solicitude.

At this juncture, it was discovered that the servant-man who brought up the tray, had forgotten the sugar, and a young nursery-maid was dispatched for it. Upon her return she contrived, by some awkwardness in closing the door, to spill the whole result of her mission to the pantry upon the floor. Her arms dropped by her sides, as if suddenly paralyzed, and I noticed a remarkable variety in the shade of her broad Irish physiognomy.

"There is no great harm done, Biddy," said my hostess, immediately, in a peculiarly quiet, gentle voice, "just step down to John for another bowlful. While poor Biddy is collecting her scattered senses on the stairs, my son, will you kindly a.s.sist Willie in picking up the most noticeable lumps?--put them in this saucer, my dear. She is just learning, you know and--she would not cross that Rubicon as bravely as the cla.s.sic hero you were reading of last night."

"While we are so literary, mother--what is it about the dolphin? If I remember rightly Bid was a pretty good exemplification"----

"Hush!--I am glad you thought to bring up more apples, Biddy. Colonel, here is the most tempting spitzenberg--so good for a cold, too. Take this to mammy will you, Biddy? The one I sent you before, was not so nice as these, mammy--your favorite kind, you know."

Amused with the new scene in which I found myself, I accepted the a.s.surance of the fair _home mother_, as the Germans have it, that I was not in the way, and lingered a little longer.

By and by, John came up to tell his mistress that there was an old man at the door with a basket of little things to sell, and that he had sent a box of sealing-wax for her to look at.

"Poo' man! poo' man?" said little Will, running up to my knee, with such a sorrowful look in his innocent face--"an' it so-o-o col'," he added, catching his mother's words, as if by instinct.

"Take him down the money, John," I overheard, in the intervals between the discourse of my juvenile instructor, "and this cup of chocolate--it will warm him. Ask him to sit by the hall stove, while he drinks it."

Nothing was said about the exceedingly portly brace of sandwiches that were manufactured by the busiest of fingers, and which, through the golden veil of Willie's light curls, I saw snugly tucked in, on either side of the saucer.

"Now, young ladies," continued my amiable friend, addressing a bevy of her rosy-cheeked young nieces, who had just before entered the room, "here is a stick of fancy-colored wax, for each of us--make your own choice. Luckily there is a red stick for Col. Lunettes" (a half deprecatory glance at me), "the only color gentlemen use. And," as she received the box again--"there is some for mammy and me--we are in partnership, you know, mammy!"

A pleased look from the centre of the wide cap-frills by the window, was the only response to this appeal; but I had repeatedly observed that, despite her industry, mammy's huge spectacles took careful cognizance of the various proceedings around her.

As I was about, for very shame, to beat a retreat, a cheery--"good morning, Colonel, I tapped at your door, as I came up, and thought you were napping it," arrested my intended departure. "So wifie has coaxed you in here! Just like her! She thinks she can take the best care of you with"--

"With the rest of the children!" I interrupted.

"My _loving spou_," as Bessie says, when she recites John Gilpin, "may I trouble you to tie my cravat?" And with that important article of attire in his hand, my friend knelt upon a low foot-stool, before his household divinity.

"Thompson," said I, "I always knew you were one of the luckiest fellows in the whole world; but may I ask--just as a point of scientific inquiry--whether that office is always performed for you,

'One fair spirit for your minister?'"

"Not a bit of it! No indeed, 'pon my word! only when I go to a dinner, as to-day--or to church, or--I say, Will, you unmitigated rogue, how dare you! you'll spoil my cravat--don't you see mamma is just tying it!"

The little fellow thus objurgated, his eyes scintillating with mirth, now fairly astride of his father's shoulders, clung tenaciously to his prize, and pet.i.tioned for a ride in his familiar seat.

Resorting to stratagem, where force would ill apply, the father, rising with a "thank you, dear wifie," retired backward towards a wide bed, and, by a dextrous movement, suddenly landed his youthful captor in a heap in the middle.

To lose no time, the brave boy, "conquered, but not subdued," made the best use of his lungs, while reducing his arms and legs to order, and Bessie, opening her beaming eyes, at this outcry, stretched out her arms to aid her pathetic appeal to papa to "p'ay one little hos" with her, "_only but one_!"

Evidently fearful of being out-generalled, the invader beat a rapid retreat from the enemy's camp, with the words "thank you, love, I believe the little rascal didn't tumble it, though I came within an ace, like a real alderman, of _dying of a dinner_--before it was eaten!"

After this initiatory visit to the nursery of my fair friend, Mrs.

Thompson, I was allowed to come and go at my own pleasure, during the remainder of my visit beneath her hospitable roof, and I found myself so interested and amused by what I witnessed there, as often to leave the solitude of my own apartment, though surrounded there by every possible "aid and appliance" of comfort and enjoyment that refinement and courtesy could supply, to learn the most beautiful lessons of practical wisdom and goodness from the most unpretending of teachers.

One morning when the _habitue_ had sought his accustomed post of observation, a young lady presented herself at the door, and seeing me, was about to retreat with something about its being very early for a visit, when Mrs. Thompson recalled her with a "Come in, my dear, and let me have the pleasure of presenting you to Colonel Lunettes, the friend of whom you have heard us all speak so often."

After the usual courtesies, this lovely earth-angel, with some hesitation, and drawing her chair nearer her friend, explained her errand.

Making a little screen of a cherub-head, as was my wont, I regaled myself un.o.bserved, with the music of sweet voices and the study of pretty faces. I caught--"my old drawing-teacher"--"her husband was a brute in their best days"--"this long, hard winter"--"not even a carpet"--"the poor child on a wooden-bottomed chair, with a little dirty pillow behind her head, and so emaciated!"--here there was a very perceptible quiver in the low tones, followed by a little choking sort of pause.

"I am really grateful to you for coming--I have been unusually occupied lately by the baby's illness and other duties--the weather has given me more than one twinge of conscience"--this accompanied by a quiet transfer from one purse to another, and then I heard, as the two ladies bent over the crib of the sleeping infant--"is there a stout boy among the children? There are the barrels of pork and beef, always ready in the cellar--each good and wholesome of their kind--husband always has them brought from the farm on purpose to give away; and we have abundance of fine potatoes--John could not readily find the place, and really, just now, he is pretty busy; still, perhaps, they have the natural pride of better days--if you think it well, I will try to send"--the gentle ministers of mercy left the room together, and I heard no more.

Presently, the youth of whom I have before spoken, still at home enjoying his holiday's college vacation, joined me, and, between the exercises of an entertaining gymnastic exhibition, in which he and Willie were the chief performers, regaled me with humorous sketches of college adventures, anecdotes of the professors, etc., in the details of some of which I think he had his quiet old nurse in his mind's eye, as well as his father's guest.

When Mrs. Thompson resumed her accustomed seat at her business-table, as it might well be called, my agreeable young entertainer slid away from the group about the fire, and was soon snugged down, in his own favorite fashion, with his legs comfortably crossed over the top of the chair sustaining mammy's implements, cheek-by-jowl with the venerable genius of the sewing-basket, dipping into a newspaper, and chatting, at intervals, with his humble friend. Once in a while I caught a sentence like this:

"I say, mammy, you can't begin to think how glad I am you are getting down to my shirts! Such work as they make washing for a fellow at college! My black washerwoman (and such a beauty as she is--such a little rosebud of a mouth!) pretends to fasten the loose b.u.t.tons--now, there is a specimen of her performances--just look! The real truth is, Mrs. Welch, that mother and you are the only women I know of who can sew on a b.u.t.ton worth a pin--just the only two, by George! Now, there's Pierre de Carradeaux, one of our young fellows down there--his friends all live in Hayti, or some other unknown and uninhabitable region, you know, over the sea--I wish you could see his clothes! The way they mend at the tailors! But the darns in his stockings are the funniest. He rooms with me, and so I hear him talking to himself, in French. I am afraid he swears, sometimes--but the way he fares is enough to make a saint swear!" And then followed a detail that caused mammy to wipe her eyes in sympathy with this strange phase of human woe, in alternation with an occasional exclamation of amus.e.m.e.nt--like, "You'll surely be the death of me, Master Sidney!" apparently forced spasmodically from her lips, despite the self-imposed taciturnity which, I shrewdly suspected, my presence created.

"Mother, my revered maternal primitive, may I read you this anecdote?

Colonel, will you allow me?"--a respectful glance at the book in my hand. And squeezing himself in from behind, by some utterly inconceivable india-rubber pliancy, between the fire and his much-enduring parent, the tall form of the stripling slowly subsided until I could discern nothing but a ma.s.s of wavy black hair reposing amid the soft folds of his mother's morning-gown, and a bit of his newspaper. Thus disposed, apparently to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, he read:

"Once, while the celebrated John Kemble, the renowned actor and acute critic, was still seated at the dinner-table of an English n.o.bleman, with whom he had been dining, a servant announced that Mrs. Kemble awaited her husband in a carriage at the door. Some time elapsed, and the impersonator of Shakspeare's mighty creations remained immovable.

At length the servant, re-entering, said: 'Mrs. Kemble bids me say, sir, that she is afraid of getting the _rheumatiz_.' 'Add _ism_,' replied the imperturbable critic of language, and quietly continued his discourse with his host."

"If I should ever be compelled to marry--which, of course, I never shall unless you disinherit me, mother, or mammy insists upon leaving us to keep house for that handsome widower, in the long snuff overcoat--[though the respectable female thus alluded to did not even glance up from her st.i.tching, I plainly marked a little nod of virtuous defiance, and a fluttering in the crimpings of the ample cap-border, that plainly expressed desperation to the hopes of the widower aforesaid]--but if fate _should_ decree my 'attaining knowledge under difficulties,' upon this subject, I hope I'll be a little too decent to keep my wife sitting out doors in a London fog (I shall make a bridal tour to Europe, of course), while I am imbibing, even with a 'n.o.bleman.'

Speaking of the tyranny of fate, I am, most reluctantly, compelled to deprive you of my refreshing conversation, my dear and excellent mother.

If my dilapidated linen is restored to its virgin integrity: in other words, if my shirt is done, I propose retiring to the deepest shades of private life, and getting myself up, without the slightest consideration for the financial affairs of my honored masculine progenitor, for a morning call upon ----, the fortunate youthful beauty I, at present, honor with my particular adoration." So saying, Sir Hopeful slowly emerged from his 'loop-hole of retreat,' and making a profound obeisance to his guardian spirit, and another to me, a shade less lowly, he took himself off, with his linen over his arm, and a grand parting flourish at the door, with his hat upon his walking-stick, for the especial benefit of his little brother, which elicited a shout of unmingled admiration from the juvenile spectators that need not have been despised by Herr Alexander himself.

During dinner that day, as the varied and most bountiful course of pastry, etc., was about to be removed, young Sidney said:

"Mother, allow me to relieve you of the largest half of that solitary-looking piece of mince-pie. I am sorry I cannot afford to take the whole of it under my protecting care."

"My dear son," replied my hostess, pleasantly, "let me suggest the attractions of variety. You have already done your _devoir_ to this pie.

Your father p.r.o.nounces the cocoanut excellent"--and then, as if in reply to the look of surprise that met her good-humored sally, she added, in a tone meant only for the ears of the youth, "this happens to be the last, and mammy eats no other, you remember."

"No great matter, either; to-morrow will be baking-day. Now I know why you took none yourself, mother," answered Sidney, cheerfully, in the same "aside" manner; and the placid smile on the hospitable face of the 'home-mother' alone acknowledged her recognition of the ascription of self-denial to her; for it is not occasionally, but always, that

"In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, An angel guard of loves and graces lie."

Adieu!