Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861




"No, Miss Ruggles," continued she, "I thank the Lord I ha'n't got a
complainin' sperrit, an' hed jest ez lieves see by my neighbor's dip ez
my own, an', mebbe ye 'll say, a sight lieveser."

And then Miss Mimy pulled out a stocking without beginning or end, and
began to knit as fast as she could rattle, after she 'd fixed one needle
in a chicken-bone, and pinned the chicken-bone to her side.

"Wal, Emerline," says she, "I s'pose ye've got so grand down ter the
mills, thet, w'at 'ith yer looms an' machines an' tic-doloreux, ye won't
hev nothin' ter say ter the old way uv knittin' socks."

"Does this look like it, Aunt Mimy?" says I, shaking my needles by way
of answer. "I'm going to finish this pair to-night."

"Oh," says she, "you be, be you? Wal, ef I don't e'en a'most vum it's
the same one! ef ye ha'n't been nigh abeout a hull year a-knittin' one
pair uv socks!"

"How do you know they're the same pair?" asked I.

"By a mark I see you sot in 'em ter the top, ef ye want ter know, afore
I thought it would be hangin' by the eyelids the rest uv yer days. Wal,
I never 'xpected ye'd be much help ter yer mother; ye're tew fond uv
hikin' reound the village."

"Indeed, Miss Mimy," said Lurindy, kind of indignant, "she's always been
the greatest help to mother."

"I don't know how I should have made both ends meet this year, if it
hadn't been for her wages," said mother.

Stephen was whittling Miss Mimy's portrait on the end of a stick, and
laughing. I was provoked with mother and Lurindy for answering the
thing, and was just going to speak up, when I caught Stephen's eye, and
thought better of it. Pretty soon Aunt Mimy produced a bundle of herbs
from her pocket, and laid them on the table.

"Oh, thank you, Aunt Jemimy," says mother. "Pennyroyal and catnip's
always acceptable."

"Yes," said Aunt Mimy. "An' I'll take my pay in some uv yer dried
apples. Heow much does Fisher give fur socks, Miss Ruggles?" she asked,
directly.

"Fifty cents and I find,--fifteen and he finds."

"An' ye take yer pay out uv the store? Varry reasonable. I wuz thinkin'
uv tryin' my han' myself;--business's ruther dull, folks onkimmon well
this fall. Heow many strings yer gwine ter give me fur the yarbs?"

Then mother went up garret to get the apples and spread the herbs to
dry, and Lurindy wanted some different needles, and went after her.
Stephen'd just heaped the fire, and the great blaze was tumbling up
the chimney, and Miss Mimy lowered her head and looked over her great
horn-bowed spectacles at me.

"Wal, Emerline Ruggles," says she, after a while, going back to her
work, "you've lost all _your_ pink cheeks!"

I suppose it took me rather sudden, for all at once a tear sprung and
fell right down my work. I saw it glistening on the bright needles a
minute, and then my eyes filmed so that I felt there was more coming,
and I bent down to the fire and made believe count my narrowings. After
all, Aunt Mimy was kind of privileged by everybody to say what she
pleased. But Stephen didn't do as every one did, always.

"Emmie's beauty wasn't all in her pink cheeks, Miss Mimy," I heard him
say, as I went into the back-entry to ask mother to bring down the mate
of my sock.

"Wal, wherever it was, there's precious little of it left!" said she,
angry at being took up, which maybe she never was before in her life.

"You don't agree with her friends," said he, cutting in the stick the
great mole on the side of her nose; "_they_ all think she's got more
than ever she had."

Mother tossed me down the mate, and I went back.

"Young folks," said Aunt Mimy, after two or three minutes' silence, "did
ye ever hear tell o' 'Miah Kemp?"

"Any connection of old Parson Kemp in the other parish?" asked Stephen.

"Yes," said Aunt Mimy,--"his brother. Wal, w'en I wuz a young gal,
livin' ter hum,--my father wuz ez wealthy ez any farmer thereabeouts, ye
know,--I used ter keep company 'ith 'Miah Kemp. 'Miah wuz a stun-mason,
the best there wuz in the deestrik, an' the harnsomest boy there
tew,--though I say it thet shouldn't say it,--he hed close-curlin' black
hair, an' an arm it done ye good ter lean on. Wal, one spring-night,--I
mind it well,--we wuz walkin' deown the lane together, an' the wind
wuz blowin', the laylocks wuz in bloom, an' all overhead the lane wuz
rustlin' 'ith the great purple plumes in the moonlight, an' the air wuz
sweeter 'ith their breath than any air I've ever taken sence, an' ez we
wuz walkin', 'Miah wuz askin' me fur ter fix eour weddin'-day. Wal, w'en
he left me at the bars, I agreed we'd be merried the fifteenth day uv
July comin', an' I walked hum; an' I mind heow I wondered ef Eve wuz
so happy in Paradise, or ef Paradise wuz half so beautiful ez thet
scented lane. The nex' mornin', ez I wuz milkin', the ceow tuk fright
an' begun ter cut up, an' she cut up so thet I run an' she arter me,--an'
the long an' the short uv it wuz thet she tossed me, an' w'en they got
me up they foun' I hedn't but one eye. Wal, uv course, my looks wuz
sp'iled,--fur I'd been ez pretty'z Emerline wuz,--you wuz pretty once,
Emerline,--an' I sent 'Miah Kemp word I'd hev no more ter du 'ith him
nor any one else neow. 'Miah, he come ter see me; but I wuz detarmined,
an' I stuck ter my word. He did an' said everything thet mortal man
could,--thet he loved me better'n ever, an' thet 't would be the death
uv him, an' tuk on drefful. But w'en he'd got through, I giv' him the
same answer, though betwixt ourselves it a'most broke my heart ter say
it. I kep' a stiff upper-lip, an' he grew desp'rate, an' tuk all sorts
uv dangerous jobs, blastin' rocks an' haulin' stuns. One night,--'t wuz
jest a year from the night I'd walked 'ith him in thet lane,--I wuz
stan'in' by the door, an' all ter once I heerd a noise an' crash ez ef
all the thunderbolts in the Almighty's hand hed fallen together, an' I
run deown the lane an' met the men bringin' up sunthin' on an old door.
They hed been blastin' Elder Payson's rock, half-way deown the new well,
an' the mine hedn't worked, an' 'Miah'd gone deown ter see w'at wuz in
it; an' jest ez he got up ag'in, off it went, an' here he wuz 'ith a
great splinter in his chist,--ef the rest uv it wuz him. They couldn't
kerry him no furder, an' sot him deown; an' there wuz all the trees
a-wavin' overhead ag'in, an' all the sweet scents a-beatin' abeout the
air, jest uz it wuz a year ago w'en he parted from me so strong an'
whole an' harnsome; all the fleowers wuz a-blossomin', all the winds wuz
blowin' an' this lump uv torn flesh an' broken bones wuz 'Miah. I laid
deown on the grass beside him, an' put my lips close to hisn, an' I
could feel the breath jest stirrin' between; an' the doctor came an'
said 't warn't no use; an' they threw a blanket over us, an' there I
laid tell the sun rose an' sparkled in the dew an' the green leaves an'
the purple bunches, an' the air came frolickin' fresh an' sweet abeout
us; an' though I'd knowed it long, layin' there in the dark, neow I see
fur sartain thet there warn't no breath on them stiff lips, an' the
forehead was cold uz the stuns beneath us, an' the eyes wuz fixed an'
glazed in thet las' look uv love an' tortur' an' reproach thet he giv'
me. They say I went distracted; an' I _du_ b'lieve I've be'n cracked
ever sence."

Here Aunt Mimy, who had told her whole story without moving a muscle,
commenced rocking violently back and forth.

"I don't often remember all this," says she, after a little, "but las'
spring it all flushed over me; an' w'en I heerd heow Emerline'd
be'n sick,--I hear a gre't many things ye do' no' nothin' abeout,
children,--I thought I'd tell her, fust time I see her."

"What made you think of it last spring?" asked Stephen.

"The laylocks wuz in bloom," said Miss Mirny,--"the laylocks wuz in
bloom."

Just then mother came down with the apples, and some dip-candles, and
a basket of broken victuals; and Miss Mimy tied her cloak and said she
believed she must be going. And Stephen went and got his hat and coat,
and said,--

"Miss Mimy, wouldn't you like a little company to help you carry your
bundles? Come, Emmie, get your shawl."

So I ran and put on my things, and Stephen and I went home with Aunt
Mimy.

"Emmie," says Stephen, as we were coming back, and he'd got hold of my
hand in his, where I'd taken his arm, "what do you think of Aunt Mimy
now?"

"Oh," says I, "I'm sorry I've ever been sharp with her."

"I don't know," said Stephen. "'Ta'n't in human nature not to pity her;
but then she brought her own trouble on herself, you see."

"Yes," said I.

"I don't know how to blast rocks," says Stephen, when we'd walked a
little while without saying anything,--"but I suppose there is something
as desperate that I can do."

"Oh, you needn't go to threatening me!" thinks I; and, true enough, he
hadn't any need to.

"Emmie," says he, "if you say 'No,' when I ask you to have me, I sha'n't
ask you again."

"Well?" says I, after a step or two, seeing he didn't speak.

"Well?" says he.

"I can't say 'Yes' or 'No' either, till you ask me," said I.

He stopped under the starlight and looked in my eyes.

"Emmie," says he, "did you ever doubt that I loved you?"

"Once I thought you did," said I; "but it's different now."

"I _do_ love you," said he, "and you know it."

"Me, Stephen?" said I,--"with my face like a speckled sparrow's egg?"

"Yes, you," said he; and he bent down and kissed me, and then we walked
on.

By-and-by Stephen said, When would I come and be the life of his house
and the light of his eyes? That was rather a speech for Stephen; and
I said, I would go whenever he wanted me. And then we went home very
comfortably, and Stephen told mother it was all right, and mother and
Lurindy did what they'd got very much into the habit of doing,--cried;
and I said, I should think I was going to be buried, instead of married;
and Stephen took my knitting-work away, and said, as I had knit all our
trouble and all our joy into that thing, he meant to keep it just as it
was; and that was the end of my knitting sale-socks.

I suppose, now I've told you so far, you'd maybe like to know the rest.
Well, Lurindy and John were married Thanksgiving morning; and just as
they moved aside, Stephen and I stepped up and took John and Aunt Mimy
rather by surprise by being married too.

"Wal," says Aunt Mimy, "ef ever you hang eout another red flag, 't won't
be because Lurindy's nussin' Stephen!"

I don't suppose there's a happier little woman in the State than me. I
should like to see her, if there is. I go over home pretty often; and
Aunt Mimy makes just as much of my baby--I've named him John--as mother
does; and that's enough to ruin any child that wasn't a cherub born. And
Miss Mimy always has a bottle of some new nostrum of her own stilling
every time she sees any of us; we've got enough to swim a ship, on the
top shelf of the pantry to-day, if it was all put together. As for
Stephen, there he comes now through the huckleberry-pasture, with the
baby on his arm; he seems to think there never was a baby before; and
sometimes--Stephen's such a homebody--I'm tempted to think that maybe
I've married my own shadow, after all. However, I wouldn't have it other
than it is. Lurindy, she lives at home the most of the time; and once in
a while, when Stephen and mother and I and she are all together, and as
gay as larks, and the baby is creeping round, swallowing pins and hooks
and eyes as if they were blueberries, and the fire is burning, and the
kettle singing, and the hearth swept clean, it seems as if heaven had
actually come down, or we'd all gone up without waiting for our robes;
it seems as if it was altogether too much happiness for one family. And
I've made Stephen take a paper on purpose to watch the ship-news; for
John sails captain of a fruiter to the Mediterranean, and, sure enough,
its little gilt figure-head that goes dipping in the foam is nothing
else than the Sister of Charity.




SCUPPAUG.


The crowd was decidedly a heterogeneous one on the edge of which I stood
at eight o'clock, A.M., one scorching July morning, under an awning at
the end of a rickety pier, waiting for the excursion-steamer which was
to convey us to the distant sand-banks over which the clear waters lap,
away down below the green-sloped highlands of Neversink,--sea-shoal
banks, from which silvery fishes were warning us off with their waving
fins.

Now the crowd, being a heterogeneous one, as I have said, had the vulgar
element pervading it to a dominant extent. It consisted mainly of such
"common people," indeed, that no person of exquisite refinement would
have thought of feeling his way through it, unless his hands were
protected by what Aminadab Sleek calls "little goat-gloves." And
yet there is another style of mitten, a large, unshapely, bloated
knuckle-fender, stuffed with curled hair, that might be far more
appropriate to the operation of shouldering in among such "muscular
Christians" as the majority around, on the occasion to which I refer.

In the resorts to which habitual tipplers have recourse for consolation
of the spirituous kind, a cheap variety is usually on hand to meet
exigencies,--the exigency of a commercial crisis, for instance, when the
last lonely dime of the drinker is painfully extracted from the pocket,
to be replaced by seven inconsiderable cents. This abomination is termed
"all sorts" by the publican and his indispensable sinner. It is the
accumulation of the drainage of innumerable gone drinks,--fancy and
otherwise. The exquisite in the "little goat-gloves" would not hob-nob
with me in that execrable beverage; no more would I with him; and yet
one of its components may be the aristocratic Champagne. In the social
elements of a water-excursion-party may be found the "all sorts" of a
particular kind of city-life,--the good of it and the bad of it, with
a dash of something that is very low. But I am going to talk about the
thing as I found it,--the rough side of the social mill-stone; and,
seeing that I have suffered nothing by contact with it, I suppose no
harm will come to such as listen to the little I have got to say on the
subject.

A benevolent desire to launch far and wide the already well-spread
reputation of the New York rowdy impels the present writer to declare
his conviction, that, should Physiology offer a premium for the
production of a perfect and unmitigated specimen of _polisson_,
Experience would seek for it among the choice representatives of the
class in question,--ay, and find it, too. Nor would the ardor of search
be chilled by the suggestion of scarcity conveyed in the practical
sarcasm of the sly old cynic, when he scorched human nature with a horn
lantern by instituting a search with it on the sun-bright highways for
an unauthenticated type of man. And yet the rowdy, like many another
ugly and repulsive thing, may have his use. In the East Indies, it is
customary to keep a live turtle in the wayside water-tanks which are so
precious in that thirsty land, the movements of the animal, as well as
the industry with which it devours all noxious particles which chance
may have conveyed into the waters, serving to keep them in a condition
of purity and health. The rowdy is the turtle in the tank,--so far,
at least, as being an ugly beast to look at and a great promoter of
commotion,--by which latter service he keeps the community alive to
the presence of impure particles in the social element, if he does not
assist in getting rid of them. An alligator in an aquarium might furnish
a better comparison for him in other respects.

Of this class there are many branches; but the one with which I have to
deal at present is to be studied to most advantage by visiting some pier
of the great river-frontage of New York, to which excursion-boats rush
emulously at appointed hours, crossing and jostling each other with
proper respect for their individual rights as free commoners of
the well-tilled waters. Here, as, with audacious disregard of the
chance-medley of smashed guards and obliterated paddle-boxes, the great
water-wagons graze wheels upon the ripple-paved turnpike of the river,
the steamboat-runner, squalidly red from the effects of last night's
carouse, and reeking sensibly of the alcoholic "morning call," may be
recognized by the native manner in which he makes the pier peculiarly
his own,--by the inflammatory character--which unremitting dissipation
has imparted to the inhaling apparatus of his unclassical features,--by
the filthy splendor of his linen, which a low-buttoning waistcoat,
gorgeous and dirty likewise, unbosoms disadvantageously to the gaze of
the beholder,--by the invariable "diamond" pin, of gift-book style, with
which the juncture of the first-mentioned integument is effected, if
not adorned,--and, above all, by the massive guards and guy-chains with
which his watch is hitched on to the belaying arrangements of Chatham
Street garments, the original texture and tint of which have long been
superseded by predominant grease. Hand and elbow with the professional
city-rowdy the steamboat-runner is ever to be found: at the cribs, where
the second-rate men of the "fancy" hold their secret meetings; clinging
about the doors of the Court of Sessions, where, as eavesdroppers,--for
they are known to the door-keeper, and rejected from the friendship of
that stern officer,--they strive, with ear at keyhole, to catch a word
or two which may give them a clue to the probable fate of "Jim," who
is in the dock there, on his trial for homicide or some such light
peccadillo; loitering round the dog-pit institutions, where
the quadrupeds look so amazingly like men and the men like
quadrupeds,--especially in that one where the eye of taste may be
gratified by the supernatural symmetry of the stuffed bull-terriers in
glass cases, the enormity of which specimens is accounted for by the
gentlemanly proprietor, who tells us that "the man as stuffed 'em never
stuffed anythink else afore, only howls."

I suppose it must have been the tacit acknowledgment of some superiority
by me inappreciable, that accorded to one individual of the small
assemblage of roughs under notice a decidedly influential position among
the congenial spirits hovering around. The superior blanchness of this
person's linen would seem to indicate that his association with mere
runners was but occasional and for commercial ends. Also might that
conclusion have been deduced from the immaculacy of his cream-white
Panama hat. That was a jaunty article, with upturned brim, the pride
of which was discernible in the very simplicity with which it sat,
unadulterated by band or trimmings, upon the closely cropped,
mole-colored head of the wearer. Thirty dollars, at least, must have
been its marketable value. Instead of being fitted with chain-tackle,
the watch of this superior person maintained its connection with the
open air by means of a broad watered ribbon plummeted straight down his
leg with a seal hardly inferior in size to a deep-sea lead. This daring
recurrence to first principles is much to be observed, of late, among
the choice spirits of the so-called "sporting" fraternity of New York.

This man, as I supposed, and as I subsequently heard from my friend
Locus, of the police, who came upon the pier, was not a runner now, but
had risen from that respectable rank by large exercise of the virtues so
intimately associated with it. In attributing an exalted position to him
I was right. He was the keeper of a house of entertainment for emigrants
in one of the down-town tributaries to Broadway, where tickets could
also be had for California and most other parts of the world, at an
advance of not more than one-third on the rates charged at the regular
steamboat-offices. Considering the respectability of this person's
occupation, I was surprised when Locus referred to him, familiarly, as
"Flashy Joe," adding that he was widely known, if not respected, and
that he would, probably, be entitled some day to have his portrait
placed in a gallery of which he, Locus, knew, but into which my
aesthetic researches have not hitherto led me.

There was another noticeable character in the rough part of the
heterogeneous crowd. This man, while on a footing of the greatest
intimacy with the runners, was far inferior to them in the matter
of dress. Locus, in reply to my queries, informed me that he was a
professional oyster-opener; but, judging from his appearance in general,
I should have guessed that he was a professional oyster-catcher also,--a
human dredge, employed chiefly at the bottom of the sea. A perfect
Hercules in build, "Lobster Bob," as Locus called him, made his
appearance on the wharf with two enormous creels of oysters, one
balanced on each hip, with the careless ease of unconscious strength,
His costume consisted solely of a ragged blue cotton shirt and trousers,
immense knobby cowskin boots white with age, and a mouldy drab felt hat.
The button-less blue shirt flapped widely open from his brawny chest;
and his shirt-sleeves, rolled up to the shoulder, gave full display to a
pair of arms of a mould not usually to be found outside the prize-ring,
and but seldom within the sanctuary of that magic circle. As if in
compensation for the merely nominal allowance of costume tolerated by
this crustacean professor, his chest and arms were entirely covered with
a wild arabesque of tattoo-work, in blue and red. Many and original
artists must have been employed in the embellishment of Robert's tawny
hide. The one to whose sense of the fitness of things was intrusted
the illustration of his right arm had seized boldly upon the oval
protuberance of the biceps, a few skilfully disposed dots and dashes
upon which had converted it into a face which was no bad reproduction of
Bob's own. On the broad flexors of his sun-bronzed fore-arm there blazed
a grand device which might have puzzled a whole college of heralds to
interpret,--a combination of eagles and banners and shields, coruscating
with stars and radiant with stripes. But more suggestive than any of
these shams was the stern reality of a purple scar which ran round the
back of his neck, from ear to ear. More than one man must have been
hurt, when that scar was made.

Notwithstanding the bull-dog projection of this formidable giant's lower
jaw, there sometimes beamed on his face that good-natured expression
often observable in men whose unusual muscular development places them
on a footing of physical superiority to those with whom they shoulder
along the road of life. When the runners "chaffed" him, nevertheless,
it was in a mild way, and with manifest respect for his muscle,--a
sentiment in no way diminished when he suddenly clutched one of the
least cautious among them by the nape of the neck, and held him out at
arm's-length, for some seconds, over the drowny water that kept lazily
licking at the green moss on the old stakes of the rickety pier.

Even unto the Prince of Darkness, saith proverbial philosophy, let us
concede his due. If, then, a single ray of good illuminates at some
happy moment the dark spirit of these roughs, let it be recorded with
that bare, unfledged truth which is so much better a bird than uncandor
with the finest of feathers upon him.

Feeling his way into the circle with a stick, there came a poor blind
man, of diminutive stature, squeezing beneath his left arm a suffocating
accordion, which, every now and then, as he stumbled against the uneven
planks of the wharf, gave a querulous squeak, doleful in its cadence as
the feeble quavers evoked by Mr. William Davidge, comedian, from
the asthmatic clarionet of Jem Bags, in the farce of the "Wandering
Minstrel."

"Come, b'hoys!" cried Lobster Bob, "let's have a squeeze of music from
Billy, afore the boat comes up"; and, plumping down one of his creels in
the middle of the crowd, he lifted up the musician, and seated him upon
the rough, cold oysters,--a throne fitter, certainly, for a follower of
Neptune than a votary of Apollo. One of the roughs danced an ungraceful
measure to the music of the accordion, mimicking, as he did so, the
queer contortions into which the musician twisted his features in
perfect harmony with his woful strains. All of them were gentle to the
blind man, though, as if his darkness had brought to them a ray of
light; and presently one of them takes off the musician's cap, drops
into it a silver dime, and goes the rounds of the throng with many
jocose appeals in favor of the owner, to whom he presently returns it
in a condition of silver lining analogous to, but more substantial than
that of the poet's cloud.

But now the poor music of the accordion was quite extinguished by the
bellowing of the brazen horns of the "cotillon band" on the deck of our
expected steamer, as she rounded to from the upper piers at which she
had been taking in excursionists. This caused a stir in the crowd under
the awning, many of whom were fathers of families taking their wives and
children out for a rare holiday. The smallest babies had not been left
at home, but were there in all their primary scarletude, set off by the
whitest of lace-frilled caps trimmed with the bluest of ribbons. And now
came the time for these small choristers to take up the "wondrous tale";
for the big horns had ceased to wrangle, and the crushing and rushing of
the crowd woke up infancy to a sense of its wrongs and a consciousness
of the necessity for action.

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