The Poet at the Breakfast-Table Part 25

Two other boarders of mine has given me notice that they was expecting to leave come the first of January. I could fill up their places easy enough, for ever since that first book was wrote that called people's attention to my boarding-house, I've had more wanting to come than I wanted to keep.

But I'm getting along in life, and I ain't quite so rugged as I used to be. My daughter is well settled and my son is making his own living.

I've done a good deal of hard work in my time, and I feel as if I had a right to a little rest. There's n.o.body knows what a woman that has the charge of a family goes through, but G.o.d Almighty that made her. I've done my best for them that I loved, and for them that was under my roof.

My husband and my children was well cared for when they lived, and he and them little ones that I buried has white marble head-stones and foot-stones, and an iron fence round the lot, and a place left for me betwixt him and the....

Some has always been good to me,--some has made it a little of a strain to me to get along. When a woman's back aches with overworking herself to keep her house in shape, and a dozen mouths are opening at her three times a day, like them little young birds that split their heads open so you can a'most see into their empty stomachs, and one wants this and another wants that, and provisions is dear and rent is high, and n.o.body to look to,--then a sharp word cuts, I tell you, and a hard look goes right to your heart. I've seen a boarder make a face at what I set before him, when I had tried to suit him jest as well as I knew how, and I haven't cared to eat a thing myself all the rest of that day, and I've laid awake without a wink of sleep all night. And then when you come down the next morning all the boarders stare at you and wonder what makes you so low-spirited, and why you don't look as happy and talk as cheerful as one of them rich ladies that has dinner-parties, where they've nothing to do but give a few orders, and somebody comes and cooks their dinner, and somebody else comes and puts flowers on the table, and a lot of men dressed up like ministers come and wait on everybody, as attentive as undertakers at a funeral.

And that reminds me to tell you that I'm agoing to live with my daughter. Her husband's a very nice man, and when he isn't following a corpse, he's as good company as if he was a member of the city council.

My son, he's agoing into business with the old Doctor he studied with, and he's agoing to board with me at my daughter's for a while,--I suppose he'll be getting a wife before long. [This with a pointed look at our young friend, the Astronomer.]

It is n't but a little while longer that we are going to be together, and I want to say to you gentlemen, as I mean to say to the others and as I have said to our two ladies, that I feel more obligated to, you for the way you 've treated me than I know very well how to put into words.

Boarders sometimes expect too much of the ladies that provides for them.

Some days the meals are better than other days; it can't help being so.

Sometimes the provision-market is n't well supplied, sometimes the fire in the cooking-stove does n't burn so well as it does other days; sometimes the cook is n't so lucky as she might be. And there is boarders who is always laying in wait for the days when the meals is not quite so good as they commonly be, to pick a quarrel with the one that is trying to serve them so as that they shall be satisfied. But you've all been good and kind to me. I suppose I'm not quite so spry and quick-sighted as I was a dozen years ago, when my boarder wrote that first book so many have asked me about. But--now I'm going to stop taking boarders. I don't believe you'll think much about what I did n't do,--because I couldn't,--but remember that at any rate I tried honestly to serve you. I hope G.o.d will bless all that set at my table, old and young, rich and poor, merried and single, and single that hopes soon to be merried. My husband that's dead and gone always believed that we all get to heaven sooner or later,--and sence I've grown older and buried so many that I've loved I've come to feel that perhaps I should meet all of them that I've known here--or at least as many of 'em as I wanted to--in a better world. And though I don't calculate there is any boarding-houses in heaven, I hope I shall some time or other meet them that has set round my table one year after another, all together, where there is no fault-finding with the food and no occasion for it,--and if I do meet them and you there--or anywhere,--if there is anything I can do for you....

.... Poor dear soul! Her ideas had got a little mixed, and her heart was overflowing, and the white handkerchief closed the scene with its timely and greatly needed service.

--What a pity, I have often thought, that she came in just at that precise moment! For the old Master was on the point of telling us, and through one of us the reading world,--I mean that fraction of it which has reached this point of the record,--at any rate, of telling you, Beloved, through my pen, his solution of a great problem we all have to deal with. We were some weeks longer together, but he never offered to continue his reading. At length I ventured to give him a hint that our young friend and myself would both of us be greatly gratified if he would begin reading from his unpublished page where he had left off.

--No, sir,--he said,--better not, better not. That which means so much to me, the writer, might be a disappointment, or at least a puzzle, to you, the listener. Besides, if you'll take my printed book and be at the trouble of thinking over what it says, and put that with what you've heard me say, and then make those comments and reflections which will be suggested to a mind in so many respects like mine as is your own,--excuse my good opinion of myself.

(It is a high compliment to me, I replied) you will perhaps find you have the elements of the formula and its consequences which I was about to read you. It's quite as well to crack your own filberts as to borrow the use of other people's teeth. I think we will wait awhile before we pour out the Elixir Vitae.

--To tell the honest truth, I suspect the Master has found out that his formula does not hold water quite so perfectly as he was thinking, so long as he kept it to himself, and never thought of imparting it to anybody else. The very minute a thought is threatened with publicity it seems to shrink towards mediocrity, as I have noticed that a great pumpkin, the wonder of a village, seemed to lose at least a third of its dimensions between the field where it grew and the cattle-show fair-table, where it took its place with other enormous pumpkins from other wondering villages. But however that maybe, I shall always regret that I had not the opportunity of judging for myself how completely the Master's formula, which, for him, at least, seemed to have solved the great problem, would have accomplished that desirable end for me.

The Landlady's announcement of her intention to give up keeping boarders was heard with regret by all who met around her table. The Member of the Haouse inquired of me whether I could tell him if the Lamb Tahvern was kept well abaout these times. He knew that members from his place used to stop there, but he hadn't heerd much abaout it of late years. I had to inform him that that fold of rural innocence had long ceased offering its hospitalities to the legislative, flock. He found refuge at last, I have learned, in a great public house in the northern section of the city, where, as he said, the folks all went up stairs in a rat-trap, and the last I heard of him was looking out of his somewhat elevated attic-window in a northwesterly direction in hopes that he might perhaps get a sight of the Grand Monadnock, a mountain in New Hampshire which I have myself seen from the top of Bunker Hill Monument.

The Member of the Haouse seems to have been more in a hurry to find a new resting-place than the other boarders. By the first of January, however, our whole company was scattered, never to meet again around the board where we had been so long together.

The Lady moved to the house where she had pa.s.sed many of her prosperous years. It had been occupied by a rich family who had taken it nearly as it stood, and as the pictures had been dusted regularly, and the books had never been handled, she found everything in many respects as she had left it, and in some points improved, for the rich people did not know what else to do, and so they spent money without stint on their house and its adornments, by all of which she could not help profiting. I do not choose to give the street and number of the house where she lives, but a-great many poor people know very well where it is, and as a matter of course the rich ones roll up to her door in their carriages by the dozen every fine Monday while anybody is in town.

It is whispered that our two young folks are to be married before another season, and that the Lady has asked them to come and stay with her for a while. Our Scheherezade is to write no more stories. It is astonishing to see what a change for the better in her aspect a few weeks of brain-rest and heart's ease have wrought in her. I doubt very much whether she ever returns to literary labor. The work itself was almost heart-breaking, but the effect upon her of the sneers and cynical insolences of the literary rough who came at her in mask and bra.s.s knuckles was to give her what I fear will be a lifelong disgust against any writing for the public, especially in any of the periodicals. I am not sorry that she should stop writing, but I am sorry that she should have been silenced in such a rude way. I doubt, too, whether the Young Astronomer will pa.s.s the rest of his life in hunting for comets and planets. I think he has found an attraction that will call him down from the celestial luminaries to a light not less pure and far less remote.

And I am inclined to believe that the best answer to many of those questions which have haunted him and found expression in his verse will be reached by a very different channel from that of lonely contemplation, the duties, the cares, the responsible realities of a life drawn out of itself by the power of newly awakened instincts and affections. The double star was prophetic,--I thought it would be.

The Register of Deeds is understood to have been very handsomely treated by the boarder who owes her good fortune to his sagacity and activity.

He has engaged apartments at a very genteel boarding-house not far from the one where we have all been living. The Salesman found it a simple matter to transfer himself to an establishment over the way; he had very little to move, and required very small accommodations.

The Capitalist, however, seems to have felt it impossible to move without ridding himself of a part at--least of his enc.u.mbrances. The community was startled by the announcement that a citizen who did not wish his name to be known had made a free gift of a large sum of money--it was in tens of thousands--to an inst.i.tution of long standing and high character in the city of which he was a quiet resident.

The source of such a gift could not long be kept secret. It, was our economical, not to say parsimonious Capitalist who had done this n.o.ble act, and the poor man had to skulk through back streets and keep out of sight, as if he were a show character in a travelling caravan, to avoid the acknowledgments of his liberality, which met him on every hand and put him fairly out of countenance.

That Boy has gone, in virtue of a special invitation, to make a visit of indefinite length at the house of the father of the older boy, whom we know by the name of Johnny. Of course he is having a good time, for Johnny's father is full of fun, and tells first-rate stories, and if neither of the boys gets his brains kicked out by the pony, or blows himself up with gunpowder, or breaks through the ice and gets drowned, they will have a fine time of it this winter.

The Scarabee could not bear to remove his collections, and the old Master was equally unwilling to disturb his books. It was arranged, therefore, that they should keep their apartments until the new tenant should come into the house, when, if they were satisfied with her management, they would continue as her boarders.

The last time I saw the Scarabee he was still at work on the meloe question. He expressed himself very pleasantly towards all of us, his fellow-boarders, and spoke of the kindness and consideration with which the Landlady had treated him when he had been straitened at times for want of means. Especially he seemed to be interested in our young couple who were soon to be united. His tired old eyes glistened as he asked about them,--could it be that their little romance recalled some early vision of his own? However that may be, he got up presently and went to a little box in which, as he said, he kept some choice specimens. He brought to me in his hand something which glittered. It was an exquisite diamond beetle.

--If you could get that to her,--he said,--they tell me that ladies sometimes wear them in their hair. If they are out of fashion, she can keep it till after they're married, and then perhaps after a while there may be--you know--you know what I mean--there may be larvae, that 's what I 'm thinking there may be, and they 'll like to look at it.

--As he got out the word larvae, a faint sense of the ridiculous seemed to take hold of the Scarabee, and for the first and only time during my acquaintance with him a slight attempt at a smile showed itself on his features. It was barely perceptible and gone almost as soon as seen, yet I am pleased to put it on record that on one occasion at least in his life the Scarabee smiled.

The old Master keeps adding notes and reflections and new suggestions to his interleaved volume, but I doubt if he ever gives them to the public.

The study he has proposed to himself does not grow easier the longer it is pursued. The whole Order of Things can hardly be completely unravelled in any single person's lifetime, and I suspect he will have to adjourn the final stage of his investigations to that more luminous realm where the Landlady hopes to rejoin the company of boarders who are nevermore to meet around her cheerful and well-ordered table.

The curtain has now fallen, and I show myself a moment before it to thank my audience and say farewell. The second comer is commonly less welcome than the first, and the third makes but a rash venture. I hope I have not wholly disappointed those who have been so kind to my predecessors.

To you, Beloved, who have never failed to cut the leaves which hold my record, who have never nodded over its pages, who have never hesitated in your allegiance, who have greeted me with unfailing smiles and part from me with unfeigned regrets, to you I look my last adieu as I bow myself out of sight, trusting my poor efforts to your always kind remembrance.

EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES

AUTOCRAT--PROFESSOR--POET.

AT A BOOKSTORE.

Anno Domini 1972.

A crazy bookcase, placed before A low-price dealer's open door; Therein arrayed in broken rows A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, The homeless vagrants, waifs and strays Whose low estate this line betrays (Set forth the lesser birds to lime) YOUR CHOICE AMONG THESE BOOKS, 1 DIME!

Ho! dealer; for its motto's sake This scarecrow from the shelf I take; Three starveling volumes bound in one, Its covers warping in the sun.

Methinks it hath a musty smell, I like its flavor none too well, But Yorick's brain was far from dull, Though Hamlet pah!'d, and dropped his skull.

Why, here comes rain! The sky grows dark, --Was that the roll of thunder? Hark!

The shop affords a safe retreat, A chair extends its welcome seat, The tradesman has a civil look (I've paid, impromptu, for my book), The clouds portend a sudden shower, I'll read my purchase for an hour.

What have I rescued from the shelf?

A Boswell, writing out himself!

For though he changes dress and name, The man beneath is still the same, Laughing or sad, by fits and starts, One actor in a dozen parts, And whatsoe'er the mask may be, The voice a.s.sures us, This is he.

I say not this to cry him clown; I find my Shakespeare in his clown, His rogues the self-same parent own; Nay! Satan talks in Milton's tone!

Where'er the ocean inlet strays, The salt sea wave its source betrays, Where'er the queen of summer blows, She tells the zephyr, "I'm the rose!"

And his is not the playwright's page; His table does not ape the stage; What matter if the figures seen Are only shadows on a screen, He finds in them his lurking thought, And on their lips the words he sought, Like one who sits before the keys And plays a tune himself to please.

And was he noted in his day?

Read, flattered, honored? Who shall say?

Poor wreck of time the wave has cast To find a peaceful sh.o.r.e at last, Once glorying in thy gilded name And freighted deep with hopes of fame, Thy leaf is moistened with a tear, The first for many a long, long year!

For be it more or less of art That veils the lowliest human heart Where pa.s.sion throbs, where friendship glows, Where pity's tender tribute flows, Where love has lit its fragrant fire, And sorrow quenched its vain desire, For me the altar is divine, Its flame, its ashes,--all are mine!

And thou, my brother, as I look And see thee pictured in thy book, Thy years on every page confessed In shadows lengthening from the west, Thy glance that wanders, as it sought Some freshly opening flower of thought, Thy hopeful nature, light and free, I start to find myself in thee!

Come, vagrant, outcast, wretch forlorn In leather jerkin stained and torn, Whose talk has filled my idle hour And made me half forget the shower, I'll do at least as much for you, Your coat I'll patch, your gilt renew, Read you,--perhaps,--some other time.

Not bad, my bargain! Price one dime!

Not bad, my bargain! Price one dime!