The World As I Have Found It Part 4

He was now an elegant, educated gentleman, who, among his many accomplishments, numbered that of music, a science he had so thoroughly mastered, and with the "concord of sweet sounds" he helped us all to while away many an otherwise weary hour.

I visited the various places of note upon the New York Central Railway, thoroughly and successfully canva.s.sing all, and reaching New York city, was received by my uncle Henry Deems with such a welcome as only a n.o.ble, soulful man can extend. After a short, sweet respite from care, we turned toward New England, the truly cla.s.sic ground of America, every foot of whose "sacred soil" has been trod by pilgrim feet and hallowed by their hearts' devotion.

Went to Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts, and spent almost an entire day at Pilgrim Hall in researches and study of its musty and time-worn relics.

It was against the rules to open the cases containing these treasures of the past to spectators, all of whom were forced to look at them through doors of gla.s.s, even as the bereft ones are ofttimes allowed to look at loved lineaments only through the lid of a closed casket; but the gentleman in charge made mine an exceptional case, and, to use his own language, as my sight lay in the sense of feeling, I should certainly touch these relics.

All the interest of varied historical a.s.sociation was imparted to me, and my fingers allowed to rest upon everything. I closed this day, so rich in research, with grat.i.tude to him for his thoughtful kindness.

There was in process of erection a monument upon Plymouth Hock, and I stood upon that granite shrine, where first knelt the Pilgrim Fathers, and pictured in my mind's eye the landing of the Mayflower and the grouping of her freight of human souls, majestically towering above them all the stalwart form of Miles Standish, with his "muscles and sinews of iron,"

and close by the lithe, clinging, delicate form of

"That beautiful rose of love That bloomed for him by the wayside, And was the first to die Of all who came in the Mayflower."

These and all their attendants pa.s.sed through my fancy as they knelt upon Plymouth Rock, and with the surging sea for a symphony, sent up their first song of praise and deliverance, and in that hour of reverie there was to me, indeed,

"A rapture by the lonely sh.o.r.e; A society where none intrudes.

By the deep sea--and music in its roar."

Then again I moved away in almost rapt entrancement, and soon stood in the old cemetery beside the moss-grown memorial stones which had stood amid the flight of over two centuries, and emotions deep and strange struggled in my breast, sealed by that _golden, sacred_ silence which sanctifies the unutterable.

Prominent among other objects there, was the resting-place of the Judsons, to whose memory a suitable tomb had been erected.

Going to Boston I spent three delightful weeks at the home of Mr. and Mrs.

Little, a dear old couple who had been married long enough to have celebrated their "Golden Wedding." The old gentleman was wont to say, that these fifty years were all links in the "honey-moon," but that he had not as yet reached the end of the first "honey-moon." So these two old lovers, like "John Anderson my Joe," and his devoted companion, had climbed the hill and were standing "thegither at its foot" in happy contentment, looking toward the golden sunset and catching the gleam of the light beyond.

I of course visited "Boston Common," "Bunker Hill Monument," "Old South Church," the museums and galleries of painting, rare collections of statuary, and even heard the "Great Organ." These localities are all fraught with interest, but too familiar to tourists to require description or comment; but I cannot leave the readers of this chapter without a tribute of praise to the high attainments of this "Athens of America," and a word of grat.i.tude for their kindness. I found not the cold, phlegmatic nature which had been depicted as that of the Yankee, nor did I see the tight purse-grip so often attributed to them, for I have nowhere met warmer hearts and more generous patronage than there, and indeed all New England was pervaded by an equal spirit of liberality and kindness.

Lowell and the other manufacturing towns I visited were to me objects of wonderful interest, the music of whose looms and shuttles, belts and wheels, engines and flame, will ever come in vivid variety amid the many voiced memories of life and its mystic music.

CHAPTER XIII.

"There is an old belief that in the embers Of all things, their primordial form exists; And cunning Alchemists could recreate The rose, with all its members, From its own ashes--but without the bloom, Without the least perfume.

Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science Can from the ashes of our hearts Once more the rose of youth restore?

What craft of alchemy can bid defiance To time, and change; and for a single hour, Renew this phantom flower?"

Taking New Hampshire in my route, I was pained to find the season too far advanced to admit a trip to White Mountains, and among the great objects of interest I must of necessity omit this "n.o.blest Roman of them all," and pa.s.s silently by the grandeur of this rugged mountain scenery.

I went to Waterbury, Vermont, the birth-place of Mr. Arms, and, after a short rest at the hotel, walked through the meadow, and crossed the clear trout-stream he had so often pictured to me as most prominent among the reminiscences of his boyhood. Going to the homestead now hallowed to me as his birth-place, I was kindly received by the widow of his brother, who needed only the knowledge of my acquaintance with her friends in the West to place me upon a familiar footing, and I became an earnest, attentive listener to her well rendered rehearsal of the pranks of his urchin-hood.

So was this day marked as memorable in the calendar of life. From Waterbury I went to Burlington, and thence to Montpelier, and finding the Legislature in session the sale of my books was greatly enhanced by the liberal patronage of its members; and here as elsewhere I had reason to to thank our national convocations.

The rigor of the approaching New England winter warned me of the necessity for going South. While on the Hudson River Railroad I was accosted by a gentleman who asked me if I could read the raised letters, and learning that I could, he begged me to accept a copy of the Bible in that style of lettering; I of course did so, and have this volume still in my possession.

Going to Chicago I found Mr. Arms established in business, which gave me an additional hope for future happiness, and 'tis needless to say,

"I built myself a castle So _stately_, _grand_ and fair; I built myself a castle, A castle in the air."

Delicate lungs and irritating cough, sent me still further South, and I reluctantly left Chicago and all I held so dear.

CHAPTER XIV.

"There is a special Providence In the fall of a sparrow."

"There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them as we will."

I have never had occasion so especially to note the over-ruling majesty of a supreme power as in my next journey, the circ.u.mstances of which I am about to relate.

I went via Indianapolis, Ind., and Louisville, Ky., to Memphis, Tenn. The latter place rivals its sister cities in generous patronage, for, although the whole southern country was so thoroughly devastated, I met with success throughout its length and breadth.

I was luxuriously entertained at the Southern Hotel of Memphis and, as I had been over most of the railroad routes, I felt anxious to go to New Orleans by water, and for that purpose sought the general agent of the river line of steamers, antic.i.p.ating the same liberality which had characterized the railroads in granting pa.s.ses.

I was most haughtily received by this official, rudely addressed, and decidedly and irrevocably denied a pa.s.s.

Nothing daunted, I walked to the levee, where lay the steamer Platte Valley, almost ready to leave, and besought Hattie, who was ever my counselor, to pay our pa.s.sage, and, in spite of repulse, enjoy the river scenery. In her judgment it seemed better not to do so, but to use our railroad pa.s.ses, as usual. I cheerfully accepted her decision. The Platte Valley started on her trip with brilliant prospects for a safe and successful pa.s.sage, but seven miles below Memphis she sank in the deep waters of the Mississippi. Many of her pa.s.sengers, especially the female portion, were taking supper in the lower cabin, and, having no means of escape, perished. Hence I had reason to be thankful to Hattie's decision, to the agent's rude rebuff, and to that over ruling power which ofttimes, in our blindness, we fail to discern.

At Chattanooga I, of course, visited the National Cemetery, where lie the ashes of so many fallen heroes. Ascended Lookout Mountain to the scene of the "Battle in the Clouds," and I could almost evoke the presence of General Joe Hooker, with his once grand proportions and n.o.ble mien, so deservedly famed as The Hero of Lookout Mountain. I afterward ascended another hill, which, although a pigmy in comparison with the Leviathan Lookout, would, in the monotony of our prairie country, be ranked as a mountain. It was upon its top were constructed the government water works, and upon which my brother William was employed for two years, occupying as a residence during that time a little cabin on the height, which was plainly perceptible from the window of my hotel quarters, but which I desired to visit in person, a source of real pleasure, perhaps enhanced by the obstacles I had to surmount in the ascent.

At Vicksburg, Miss., I was followed by the same tidal wave of success, in spite of the sad stringency of the times and the cruel effects of war.

While there a gentleman took us in his carriage to the earthworks constructed by the soldiers as a fortification, taking great pains to explain all to me, and allowed me to use the usual sense of feeling, which so often served in lieu of sight.

At Jackson, Miss., I was a guest of the same hotel in which lived General Beauregard, who was Superintendent of the Jackson and New Orleans Railway, and who, aside from other acts of kindness and civility, freely tendered me a pa.s.s over his road.

My stay at the "Crescent City" was not only marked by great business success, but the three weeks of sight-seeing was a "continued feast."

Although it was now the middle of January, flowery spring "seemed lingering in the lap of winter." The perfume of the violet, the scent of the rose, the gladness of the sun-beam and the brightness of the skies will ever linger in memory, while the geniality and goodness of its people will, in the "dimness of distance," glimmer like a soft love-light in the life of the blind girl.

I visited the French market, and drank a cup of the famed and fragrant Mocha; went to its cemeteries, which, in their flowery beauty, robbed death of its terrors; took a drive upon the sh.e.l.l road to Lake Pontchartrain; walked in Jackson Square; and, indeed, visited all localities of note in and around the city.

Should my curious readers wish to know how I could enjoy and describe all these, the answer will be found in my companion and friend, Hattie, who, with her wonderful adaptation and ingenuity, added to her remarkable descriptive powers, vividly pictured all to me, and, through an unwritten, indescribable language known only to ourselves, it became a system of mental telegraphy and soul language.

There is in Europe a blind man, whose name I cannot recall, who is led from Court to Court and from palace to palace by a frail young girl, and between these there exists the same mystic yet unerring language. What this little fairy is to him such was Hattie Hudson to me, or, to use the language of another:

"She was my sight; The ocean to the river of my thoughts, Which terminated all."

CHAPTER XV.

"Devotion wafts the mind above, But Heaven itself descends in love; A feeling from the G.o.dhead caught.