Part 13

Does she? Then I must be very careful what I say. I have had many letters from little girls, whose bright eyes I never shall see, begging me to say this, that, or the other thing, in print, that their mammas may see it, and so grant them the favors they desire. Now I don’t like to come between a mother and her own little girl. I should not allow any one to do that to me. I think I know more about my little girl than any one else can possibly know. I watch her closely, I know all her faults and all her good points, and I think I understand how to deal justly with both, though I may be mistaken. I have never “forbidden her to read tales or stories,” as you say your mother has you, because I think children should be allowed to read them at proper times, when they are good and innocent, no matter how “startling” and “wonderful” they may be. Studying is dry work, though necessary, and most schools, as now conducted, inexpressibly tedious to a restless, active child; and after school hours are over, and a good dinner has been eaten, and a brisk run has been taken out of doors for exercise, I think it does a child good to read a nice, bright story. I often bring storybooks to my little girl, and when I find any interesting anecdote in a big book I am reading, I turn down the leaf, that she may read it too, and we often talk it over, and sometimes she thinks very differently from me about it, and then I like to get at her reasons for doing so; and often she will use a big word to express herself that I doubt she knows the meaning of, although she has used it quite correctly, and when I say, “Now, what does that big word mean?” she says, “Oh, I can’t tell you, _but I know it fits in there_;” and so it does. Now I think this makes home pleasant for her, and I always fancy she is more willing to go back to her books and her lessons after it.

Now perhaps it is _your_ fault that your mother has denied you “tales and stories.” It may be that you not only neglect your lessons altogether for them, but your home duties also—for even little girls can and ought to help their mothers at home in a thousand ways. Suppose you try getting your lessons, and doing whatever she wishes at home and at school, and then see if she is not willing you should read good, innocent stories. I think she would be, for every mother knows that _her_ household duties go on much more smoothly and pleasantly if she occasionally takes a walk, or visits a friend, or reads a pleasant book, and surely this must be true of a little girl, after sitting many hours in a schoolroom, repeating words which often convey no ideas to her mind, sometimes because the teacher only makes it more misty when he tries to explain it; mamma, perhaps, thinking it is the teacher’s business, and the teacher thinking it is mamma’s fault, when the child complains to either; sometimes because the little brain is so overtasked, that its owner settles down into listless discouragement; sometimes because the air of the schoolroom is so bad as to stupefy both teacher and scholar. I often wish that when teachers see their pupils’ cheeks flush, and their heads droop, they would stop study, and read some interesting book aloud for half an hour. I am very sure that their scholars would study all the better after it. I don’t think a good story at proper times hurts any girl or boy. Childhood craves it, and, _I_ think, should have it, and I hope many good men and women will continue to keep up the supply for them, and I hope that no little child, because I say this, will be so foolish as to think that eating cake _all_ the time is better than to live on bread, and eat cake _occasionally_, for it is labor, after all, that sweetens amusement, when we feel and know that we have earned it. You know you can’t play all your life. You can’t read storybooks always. One of these days you must be an earnest woman, take care of your own house, tend your own little baby, who will look straight into your eyes and believe everything _you_ tell it, right or wrong, as if God himself were speaking. This is very sweet, but it is very solemn too; you must prepare for this, and one way is _never to neglect duty for pleasure_. Labor first—amusement afterward.

THE NURSE’S DAY OUT.

We all know that “nobody is to blame” when a railroad accident occurs. The same is true of waking up a baby. Mothers know what delicate management is often required to lull baby to sleep. How many tunes have sometimes to be hummed, how many walkings up and down the floor, how many trottings, how many rockings, how many feedings, before this desirable event comes off. At last the little lids give promise of drooping, the little waxen paws fall helpless, the little kicking toes are quiescent, mamma draws a breath of relief, as she pushes her hair off her heated face, and baby looks as if nothing on earth could ever disturb its serenity. Won’t there? Tramp, tramp, tramp, comes the baby’s papa up stairs with a pair of creaking boots. Mamma rushes to the nursery door, with warning forefinger on her lips and an imploring “John, dear, the baby! it is the nurse’s day out—pray don’t wake her up.” “John, dear,” true to his sex, creaks on, and argues this wise, “My dear, I’ve often noticed that it isn’t _that_ kind of noise that ever wakes baby.” Of course, mamma is too much of a woman not to know that a _man is never mistaken_ even with regard to a subject he knows nothing about; but it strikes her that sometimes strategy is a good thing; so the next day she places his slippers below stairs in a very conspicuous and tempting position, trusting that his tired feet may naturally seek that relief. I say _naturally_, because she knows that he would as soon thrust his feet into two pots of boiling water as put them in those slippers, if he thought the idea came from a _female_ mind, so naturally does the male creature hedge about his godlike dignity. Well, the baby is quieted and patted down again; when in comes its aunty, and begins to brush the lint off her dress with a stiff scraping sound. To a remonstrance she replies, “Just as if _that_ noise could wake up baby;” and while she yet speaks, up go the little fat hands in the air, and the eyelids struggle to unclose, and mamma begins humming again “Yankee Doodle” or “Old Hundred,” saucy or sacerdotal, no matter which, it is all the same to Morpheus. This accomplished she creeps on tiptoe away from the bed, congratulating herself that _now_ certainly she can get a breathing spell and time to change her morning dress. Just then “dear John” appears again, and wants something; a bit of string, or a bottle, maybe, but whatever it is, he is sure it is on the top shelf in the closet of that room; and though he is not going to use it immediately, he wants it _found_ immediately because—he _wants_ it! and because, though “impatient woman can never wait an instant for anything,” man is very like her in that respect, though he don’t see it. So the search is instituted, and down tumbles one thing and then another off the shelves, rattling and rustling and bumping, and finally it is discovered that “the pesky thing” isn’t there, but is down in the kitchen cupboard; this piece of information dear John conveys to his wife in a shrill “sissing” whisper, “because a whisper,” he says, how loud soever, “never yet woke up a baby!”

Just then the large violet eyes unclose and the little mouth dimples into a pretty smile of recognition, and “dear John,” whose attention is called to it, exclaims, peeping into the crib, “Well now, who’d have thought it?” and creaks off down stairs after his bottle or ball of string as calm as a philosopher; and then asks his wife at dinner “if she has mended that lining in his coat-sleeve that he spoke about at breakfast time.”

SWEET SIXTEEN.

Poetically, it is very well. Practically, I object to it. Has it ever “a decent dress,” although the family seamstress works from morning till night of every day in the year, taking in and letting out, lengthening and shortening, narrowing here and widening there? The very first day a new dress is worn, don’t “sweet sixteen” tear it, and that in a most conspicuous place, and in the most zig-zag manner? _Could_ she “help it,” when there is always a protruding nail or splinter lying in wait purposely for her, which by no foresight of hers could be walked round, or avoided? Don’t the clouds always seem to know when she has on a new bonnet, and the mud when she wears new gaiters? And when she wants her umbrella at school, isn’t “the nasty thing” always at home, and when she needs it at home, is it not always perversely at school? Don’t “sweet sixteen,” when she takes a notion to sit down and sew, always locate herself by the side of the bed, which she sticks full of needles, and going her way straightway forgetteth, till roused by the shrieks of punctured sufferers? Don’t “sweet sixteen” always leave the street door open, and the gas in her room burning at high pressure all night? Does she ever own a boot-lacing, or a pin, or a collar, although purchases of these articles are made for her continually, if not oftener? Isn’t her elder sister always your “favorite,” and was she ever known to like her breakfast, dinner or supper, or prefer wholesome food to sweet and dyspeptic messes? Is she ever ready to go to bed of a night, or get up of a morning? Don’t she always insist on wearing high heels to her boots, which are constantly putting her feet where her head should be? Don’t she always, though consulted as to the hues and make of her garments, fret at the superior color and fit of those of Adelina Seraphina Elgitha Smith’s? And finally, although she has everything she wants, or thinks she wants, isn’t everything, and everybody, “_real mean, and so there!_”

SITTING FOR MY PORTRAIT.

The other day I was riding in an omnibus, when it got too full by one little girl, whom I offered to take on my lap, as the mother had her arms full of parcels. She sat for a moment on my knee with her finger in her mouth, and head turned shyly away. Then she made up her little mind to look round in my face, and see whether or no she would continue to stay with me. I declare that I awaited that scrutiny as bashfully as ever a timid lover did his maiden’s answer. I actually felt the blood rushing up to my cheek, as the clear blue eyes looked searchingly into mine, as if God himself were asking, “Lovest thou me?”

Then the little thing turned her head away again, but not till she had given me a warm, bright smile, by which I knew that her heart knew no fear of me. I did not speak, because we understood each other; I waited as one waits near a bush upon which a little humming bird has alighted—fearful lest a breath should disturb it. By and by she gave a careless glance out the omnibus window, and says—by way of encouraging me—“There’s horses out there.”

“Yes,” said I.

She waited a few minutes longer—then finding me still apparently bashful—she says—

“There’s shops out there.”

“Yes,” said I again.

Then she waited another while—and then turning her cunning little face full upon me as if determined to _make_ me speak, she says—

“_Ain’t_ there many _peoples_ out there?”

Now you may laugh—but that child’s favorable verdict, after looking at me so intently, gave me more pleasure than I know how to tell you; had she jumped down off my lap—I shouldn’t have dared to face my looking-glass that day, lest some hateful passion, born of the world’s strife, had written its satanic “Get thee behind me,” on my face.

ABOUT A JOURNEY I TOOK.

When I was a little girl, I disliked traveling, above all things; the very idea of going away from the chimney-corner, gave me a homesick feeling at once. I would rather have stayed all alone in the house, than ridden off with the merriest party that ever wore traveling dresses. I had a kind of cat-liking for my corner, and as I always had plenty to think about, I was never troubled at being left alone. Now, that I have girls of my own, I like “my corner” better than ever, but I have changed about traveling, which I like very much in pleasant company. By “traveling” I don’t mean going round the country with heaps of dresses in big trunks, and parading up and down on the piazza of a hotel, to show them off. Not at all. I mean that I like to take as few changes of garments as I can possibly get along with, and putting on some very plain dress, which it will not fret me to have trod on, and rained on, and powdered with dust, with a nice book or two in my trunk, in case of a rainy day, start off to see what beautiful things nature has hidden away for those of her children who love to search them out. In this way, I started last summer to make the trip of the Northern lakes. That was something new for me. I had seen Niagara, and the Catskills, and been to Saratoga, Lake George, and all the places where people usually go in the summer months; now I wanted something entirely different. I found it in Toronto; and the difference, I am sorry to say, did not please me. The city wore to me a very dilapidated and tumble-down air; the houses, with scarcely an exception, looked streaked and shabby; pigs ran loose about the streets, and over the plank sidewalks. Now and then I saw a handsome private carriage, or a large hotel-looking house; but the high walls about the grounds looked forbidding, gloomy and unsocial; not a peep was to be had of the pretty flowers behind, if indeed there were any. In that it seemed to me a very desolate kind of place; and the mammoth hotel where we stayed, with its immensely high, wide halls, echoing back the footsteps of the few travelers who walked through them, to their large, dreary, immense rooms, seemed to make me still gloomier. For all that, the people whom I met in the street had fine broad chests, and a healthy color in their faces, and looked out of their clear bright eyes as if life were a pleasant thing to them; as I doubt not it is. Still, I would rather not live in Toronto; and after spending two days in it, I was very willing to get into the cars, and rush through the backwoods country, on my way to Detroit. Such splendid trees as I saw in those backwoods! I could only think of the “cedars of Lebanon,” tall, straight, green columns of foliage, that looked as if they had grown, and would continue to grow hundreds of years. Nestled under them, were now and then rude log huts. In the doorway stood the stately mother with her bronzed face, and clinging to her skirts, rosy little barefooted children, rugged as the wild vine that twisted its arms round the huge trees before their door.

Near by, stood their father, the woodman, resting on his ax, to look at the cars, as the shrieking whistle sent the cattle bounding through the clearing, and the train disappeared, leaving only a wreath of smoke behind. And so on, for miles and miles through that bright day, we never wearied of gazing till the sun went down. Once I caught a glimpse of a tiny log hut, the low roof festooned with morning glories—pink, blue, and white. I cannot tell you what a look of refinement it gave the little place, or how pretty a little, curly, golden-haired girl, in a red frock, and milk-white feet, looked, standing in the doorway. Some gentle heart beat there, in the lone wilderness, I knew by those morning glories. The pretty picture has often come up before me; and I have wished I were an artist, that I might show you the lovely lights and shadows of that leafy backwoods home. When we reached the pretty city of Detroit, it was so dark we could only dimly see it. We were very tired, too, having ridden in the cars from early morning till nearly nine in the evening. So we gazed sleepily out the carriage windows, as we were being rattled through the streets to the hotel, now and then seeing a church-spire, now a garden, now a brilliantly lighted row of stores, now a large square, and passing groups of men, women, and children, of whom we knew no more than of the man in the moon, and who had eaten their breakfasts, dinners and suppers, and had been born, vaccinated, baptized, and married, all the same as if they did not know we were in existence. It is a strange feeling, this coming into a strange place, and at night, and wondering what daylight will have to show to us the next morning, as we sleepily close the bedroom shutters, and lie down in that strange bed.

The familiar picture, your eyes have opened upon so many mornings, does not hang on _that_ wall; it is hundreds of miles away. Joseph and his brethren, or Henry Clay, or the Madonna, or the Benicia Boy, may be there; but you don’t feel acquainted with them, and feel a strange delicacy about washing, and combing your hair, in their company. Breakfast, however, above all things! especially when you have not dared to eat heartily the night before. So we got ready, and, having satisfied ourselves, took a carriage to see Detroit. I liked it very much; the people were wide awake, and not content with tumble-down old institutions. New handsome buildings were being put up, besides many that were already finished. The streets were clean, and prettily set off by little garden-patches, with flowers, trees and vines about the houses. There was selling and buying too, and a thorough go-ahead air, in the place, as if this world was not yet finished by any manner of means, as they seemed to think in Toronto. Our coachman was very intelligent and civil, so I catechized him to my heart’s content as to who lived here, and who lived there, and what this church steeple believed, and who worshiped in the other; or why General Cass, being such a big man, didn’t live in a bigger house, and where all the nice peaches came from, about the streets, and where I could find some nice crackers to nibble, when I went off in the steamboat that afternoon, and where were the bookstores, and how much we were to pay for asking so many questions!

Exchanging our carriage for a steamboat, or “propeller” as they called it, we bade good by to Detroit, and glided away up to Lake St. Clair; to the head of Lake Superior. Eleven days we were on the water, more than long enough to cross the ocean to Old England. I was very fearful I should not prove a good sailor, particularly as I was told, before starting, that the lakes sometimes had a touch of old Ocean’s roughness. My fear was lost in delight as our boat plowed its way along so gently, day after day, and I sat on deck, the fresh wind blowing over my face, looking down upon the bright foam-track of the vessel, or upon the pretty sea-gulls which with untiring wing followed us hundreds of miles, now and then dipping their snowy breasts in the blue waves, or riding securely on their foaming tops. Sometimes little tiny brown birds flew upon the deck of the vessel, as if glad to see human faces, in their trackless homes. Winter begins very early up on these lakes; so while it was still sweltering weather in New York, we were not surprised to see the gay autumn leaves hung out, like signal flags, here and there on the shore, warning us not to stay too long, where the cold winds lashed the waves so furiously, or without a word of warning locked them up in icy fetters without asking leave of any steamboat. It was hard to believe it, even in sight of the pretty autumn leaves, so soft was the wind, so blue was the sea and sky, so gently were we rocked and cradled. Now and then an Indian, a _real live Indian_, in a real Indian canoe, would pass us with a blanket for a sail, shouting us a rough welcome in his own way, as he passed. Now and then a little speck, just on the edge of the water where it seemed to meet the sky, would gradually grow larger and larger till it turned out to be another boat, and with a burst of music, from the band on board, they too would pass away, and leave us silent as before. Now, where the lake grew narrow, we saw little huts, dotted in and out along the line of shore. There life and death with its solemn mysteries went on, just as it does in your home or mine. Now and then we stopped at what the captain called “a landing,” for wood or coal or freight for the boat. Then the people who lived there flocked down to see us, and to buy melons of us, which were a great treat, where nothing but pines and potatoes would grow. Then we would leap over the gangway to the wharf, and scamper up into the town, to take the exercise we needed after being lazy so long, and then “all hands on board!” and away we glided again; the strange friendly faces on the pier smiling as we passed away.

Oh, it was lovely! I never wanted to leave the boat; I wanted you, and every body else, who enjoy such things, to come there and float on those blue waters, with me forever.

Oh, had you only been there beside me on one of many heavenly evenings, you would never, never have forgotten it! The red sun sank slowly into the blue waves, on one side of us, while the moon rose majestically out of the water, on the other; and before us the beautiful island of “The Great Spirit” was set like an emerald in the sapphire sea. Then, when all this glory passed away into the darkness, and I sat marveling if Heaven with “its golden streets and gates of pearl,” _could_ be fairer, up flashed “the Aurora” in long quivering lines of light, rose-color and silver, till earth and sea and sky were all ablaze with glory!

My heart beat quick, I held my breath, as though some great being were sweeping past, whose glorious silken robe I would, but dare not, bow my lips to press.

Now I must tell you, that I went into an Indian wigwam, where the door was a blanket; where the bedstead was made of twigs and branches; where a big brown woman was stirring something, witch-fashion, in a boiling pot over the fire; where copper-colored children, with diamond eyes, and long, black, snaky locks, were squatted in the sun, outside the wigwam, while the square-cheeked men caught fish in the little canoes, from the sparkling “rapids,” that seemed just going to wash away their bird’s-nest looking huts. As to the “romantic Indian maid” we read about, I am sorry to tell you that she wears a hoop! for I saw it with my own eyes. However, she seemed so proud and well pleased with her first attempts at the genteel, that I wouldn’t smile, as I felt like doing.

I didn’t ask her how she managed to get in and out of their little egg-shell boats with that hoop, or through the small aperture that served for a door to the wigwam. Perhaps she dropped it off on the outside when she wanted to go into her queer house—who knows? I might say I should have liked her better without it, on that bright morning, as she stood there by the blue Sault River, with her glossy black hair blowing about her bright eyes. Eleven days in all we were on these beautiful lakes; more than long enough to go to Europe, which I hope some day to see. _One night too long_ we were on the water before we reached Chicago. And what a night that was, of fog and rain and thunder and lightning. So vivid was the lightning that no one would have been surprised at any moment had it struck the vessel. Every peal of thunder seemed as if it thumped us directly on the head. The steamer tipped and rolled, and the rain beat into the cabin windows and dripped on the bed, and deluged the floor. The military company whom we took on board a few hours before, hushed their songs and jests, and watched with us for the daylight that was to ensure the safety of all on board. It came at last; and we breathed freely as we stepped safely on shore. How little we thought, as we shook hands with the merry captain, and I promised “to take another trip on his nice boat next summer,” that the very next night he would be shipwrecked on those waters!