The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Iii Part 2

"'Girletta,' he said, with the ring of iron in his tones, 'why is it that the beasts never want to marry? G.o.d made them as He made us; yet they never ask priests to make them slaves to each other.'

"The sickly little waif cringed closer to that inscrutable great heart which underlaid a soul of eternal questioning. She shuddered like a wounded hog, but could not answer. An inward fever was devouring her.

"The man took some more pork and beans. 'Girletta,' he said, almost fiercely, 'the beasts teach me a lesson; but I will not, dare not, SHALL not heed it. I want a home; my heart demands some one to work for me; to support me. I am weary of labor, and want some one to labor and toil and suffer for me, and do my washing. I love you. Have me.'

"The atom of womanhood contorted her diseased features into the pale twist of agony, and her bosom heaved with stormy wavings, like the side of a tortured and choking brute. Falling to the ground, she writhed, and struggled, and kicked convulsively, as though seized with some inward pang. Then she rose slowly to her shattered little feet, and drew an old cupboard to the middle of the wretched cave and beat her head against it.

"It was the child's first taste of that great mystery of perfect love which woman is doomed to share with the thing called Man.

"'Yo'air indulging in secret cachinnation, at the expense of my sair heart.'

"The child meant that he was laughing at her.

"John Smith helped himself to some more pork and beans, and sat back in his stern, dark chair. What were his thoughts as he looked down on that miniature fragment of womanly humanity? Perhaps he thought that there might be angels way up in heaven just like her. Bright seraphs, with ruby eyes, and silver wings, and golden harps, and just such pale, haggard, gaunt, sunken, bleared little faces.

"'Girletta,' he said, 'I hereby make thee mine. Take some of these pork and beans.'

"She fell upon his bosom.

"There let us leave them. Do you think they were any less happy, because they were way down in a dreamy, rayless coal-mine, where men work their souls away to give others warmth? If you think so, you have never felt what true love is. Your degraded and starless nature has never had one true soul to lean upon. When you lean upon a soul, you see everything through that soul, which gives its own hue to everything. Man's love is a pane in his bosom, and through that pane the eyes of woman look forth to see the new world. The medium is the ultimatum. G.o.d gives us love that we may live more cheaply and happily together than if we were separate. A bread-pudding is richer where there are two hearts, than plum-pudding is to one alone. The world will learn this yet, and then the lion will lie down with the lamb, and even you will be less depraved. The First of April found John Smith unmarried, but it left him nearly wedded. Let us think of this when the spring birds sing again. It will make us more human, more charitable, and fitter to be blest."

As Samyule finished reading this excellent religious tale, my boy, I stole from the tent to meditate in silence upon the terrible revelation of human nature. Are there not dozens of Smiths in this world,--ay, even John Smiths? I should think so, my boy,--I should think so.

On Friday morning, I went to Accomac, to attend the funeral of a young chap who had finished with delirium tremens, and was deeply affected by the funeral sermon of the Mackerel Chaplain, who had kindly volunteered for the occasion.

Having shaken hands with the parents of deceased, the worthy man commenced the service.

He said that man was born to die. He had known a number of men to die, and believed that death was every man's lot. If our dear brother here could speak, he would say that it was his lot. What was death, after all, but an edict of liberty? Death was the event that set us free, and freedom was a priceless blessing. Political demagogues pretended to believe that certain men should be the slaves of other men, because their skins were a little darker than the others. What a bright argument was this! If dark skins disent.i.tled men to freedom, he (the speaker) could point out more than one Democrat who certainly ought to be a slave. (Great laughter.) Freedom was plainly the condition Providence intended for all men, without regard to color, no matter what Tammany Hall might say to the contrary. It was because we had permitted a violation of this condition in the cases of four millions of fellow-beings, that this terrible war had come upon us. We could only conquer by declaring the slaves, now and forever, FREE!

(Tumultuous and enthusiastic applause.) It was the duty of every loyal man to see that this principle was carried out, even as they were about to carry their departed brother out: though it must not be inferred that he meant it should be carried out on _beer_. (Great laughter.) When we had once settled this matter at home, we could afford to say to John Bull and Louis Napoleon: "Interfere if you dare. We are ready for you both." [Male parent of the deceased--"Why don't you go and fight yourself?"] That gentleman who spoke then, is as bad as the patient who said to the doctor who was recommending some wholesome medicine to him: "Why don't you take it yourself, if it's good?" (Great laughter and applause.) But he would detain them no longer, or the papers would say that he had talked politics.

At the conclusion of this discourse, my boy, the male parent of the deceased offered the following preamble and resolution:

WHEREAS, It has pleased an inscrutable and all-wise Providence to free our departed brother from the bonds of life; and

WHEREAS, Freedom is the normal condition of all mankind: therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That we will vote for no man who is not in favor of Universal Liberty, without respect to color.

Pa.s.sed, unanimously.

Politics, my boy, are, in themselves, a distinct system of life and death; and when we say that a man is politically dead, we mean that even his en-graving is forgotten; and that the brick which he carries in his hat is a species of head-stone.

Yours, post obit,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER Lx.x.xI.

SHOWING HOW A MINION OF TYRANNY WAS TERRIBLY PUNISHED FOR INTERFERING WITH THE CONSERVATIVE WOMEN OF AMERICA; AND DESCRIBING THE KENTUCKY CHAP'S REMARKABLE SKIRMISH WITH HIS THANKSGIVING DINNER.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 7th, 1863.

As I make it a practice to pay all my honest debts, my boy, and have never flagellated a person of African descent, I could not properly come under the head of "Chivalry" in an American dictionary, though I might possibly come under its feet in the "Union-as-it-Was;" yet I have that in my nature which revolts at the thought of a war against women, and am sufficiently chivalrous to defend any cause whose effects are crinoline. The bell-shaped structure called Woman, my boy, was created expressly to conquer unresisting adversaries; to win engagements without receiving a blow, and to do pretty much as she pleases, by pleasing pretty much as she does. She is a harmless creation of herself, my boy; and to war directly against her because she may chance to influence her male friends to war against us, is about as sensible as it would be to execrate our hatter because a gust of wind blows our new beaver into the mud. If the hatter had not made the hat, the wind could not have blown it off, and if G.o.d had not made women, she could not encourage the well-known Southern Confederacy against us; but shall we turn enemy to the hatter, or to the woman, on this account? Not if we know ourselves, my boy, and recognize the high moral spirit of justice observable in the Const.i.tution.

Being thus possessed of a reverence for that s.e.x whose bonnets remind me of cake-baskets, I cannot refrain from frowning indignantly upon that horrible spirit of national tyranny which has inspired Sergeant O'Pake, of the demoralized Mackerel Brigade, to issue the following

"GENERAL ORDER."

"For the purpose of simplifying national strategy to those conservative women of America who, while engaged in the pursuit of happiness as guaranteed by the Const.i.tution, desire to visit the Southern Confederacy, it is ordered that they shall answer the following paternal questions before pa.s.sing the lines of the Mackerel Brigade:

"I. For how many years has your age been Just Twenty-two?

"II. How many novels do you consume per week?

"III. Were you ever complained of to the authorities for inordinate piano-forte playing?

"IV. Do you work slippers for the heathen?

"V. If so; for _what_ He, then?

"VI. What newspaper's 'Marriages and Deaths' do you consider the best?

"VII. In selecting a church to attend, what colored prayer-book do you find most becoming to your complexion?

"VIII. How much display of neck do you consider necessary to indicate a Modesty which shrinks from showing an ankle?

"IX. Did you ever stoop to folly? or is it Folly alone that stoops to you?

"X. Did you ever eat as much as you wanted at dinner, when members of the opposite s.e.x were opposite?

"It is also ordered that no female visitor to the celebrated Southern Confederacy shall carry more than eight large trunks and a bonnet-box for each month in the year; and that no female shall pa.s.s the line, whose dimensions in full dress exceed the ordinary s.p.a.ce between two pickets, as the latter will, on no account be permitted to edge away from their stations at this trying crisis in the history of our distracted country.

"O'PAKE, "Sergeant Mackerel Brigade."

This inhuman order had scarcely been issued when there came to the Mackerel lines in front of Paris a virtuous young female, aged 23 with the figures reversed, who was disgusted with the great vulgarity of the North, and wished to visit the marriageable Southern Confederacy, having heard that the Confederacy was carefully Husbanding its resources. Being a poor girl, with "nothing to wear," she only had seven Saratoga trunks, ten bandboxes, fourteen small carpet-bags, and a lap-dog; yet the ill-bred O'Pake was suspicious enough to examine one of her trunks.

He ruthlessly opened it in her presence, my boy, and quickly met with the horrible fate which was at once immortalized by the Mackerel Chaplain in the following awful presentment:

"THE AVENGING SKELETON."

"When tyrant purpose made the martial fool With brief authority profoundly drunk, Unto his minions issued forth a rule, To search each Southward-going woman's trunk.

"There was a Sergeant of the Mack'rel ranks Made one attempt to carry out the law; But ah!--to Providence a thousand thanks!-- He met a doom to fill the soul with awe.