Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 40, February, 1861», страница 2

The Venus of Page we cannot accept,—not because it may be unbeautiful, for that might be but a shortcoming,—not because of any technical failure, for, with the exception of weakness in the character of waves, nothing can be finer,—not because it lacks elevated sentiment, for this Venus was not the celestial,—but because it has nothing to do with the present, neither is it of the past, nor related in any wise to any imaginable future.

The present has no ideal of which the Venus of the ancients is a manifestation. Other creations of that marvellous Greek mind might be fitly used to symbolize phases of the present. Hercules might labor now; there are other stables than the Augean; and not yet are all Hydras slain. Armor is needed; and a Vulcan spirit is making the anvil ring beneath the earth-crust of humanity. But Venus, the voluptuous, the wanton,—no sensuousness pervading any religion of this era finds in her its fitting type and sign. She, her companions, and her paramours, with the magnificent religion which evolved them, were entombed centuries ago; and no angel has rolled the stone from the door of their sepulchre. They are dead; the necessity which called the Deistic ideal into existence is dead; the ideal itself is dead, since Paul preached in Athens its funeral sermon.

As history of past conditions, no value can be attached to representations produced in subsequent ages. In this respect all these pictures must be false. The best can only approximate truth. Yet his two pictures of Scriptural subjects—one from the remoteness of Hebrew antiquity, the other from the early days of Christianity—are most valuable even as history: not the history of the flight from Egypt, nor that of the flight into Egypt, but the history of what these mighty events have become after the lapse of many centuries.

Herein lies the difference between Mythology and Christianity: the one arose, culminated, and perished, soul and body, when the shadow of the Cross fell athwart Olympus; the other is immortal,—immortal as is Christ, immortal as are human souls, of which it is the life. No century has been when it has not found, and no century can be when it will not find, audible and visible utterance. The music of the "Messiah" reveals the relation of its age to the great central idea of Christianity. Frà Angelico, Leonardo, Bach, Milton, Overbeck, were the revelators of human elevation, as sustained by the philosophy of which Christ was the great interpreter.

Therefore, to record that elevation, to be the historian of the present in its deepest significance, the noblest occupation. Dwelling, as an artist must dwell, in the deep life of his theme, his work must go forth utterly new, alive, and startling.

Thus did we find the "Flight into Egypt" a picture full of the spirit of that marvellous age, hallowed by the sweet mystery which all these years have given. Who of those who were so fortunate as to see this work of Mr. Page will ever forget the solemn, yet radiant tone pervading the landscape of sad Egypt, along which went the fugitives? Nothing ever swallowed by the insatiable sea, save its human victims, is more worthy of lament than this lost treasure.

Thus, too, is the grandest work of Mr. Page's life, the Moses with hands upheld above the battle. Were we on the first page instead of the last, we could not refrain from describing it. Yet in its presence the impulse is toward silence. We feel, that, viewed even in its mere external, it is as simple and majestic as the Hebrew language. The far sky, with its pallid moon,—the deep, shadowy valley, with its ghostly warriors,—the group on the near mountain, with its superb youth, its venerable age, and its manhood too strong and vital for the destructive years;—in the presence of such a creation there is time for a great silence.

KNITTING SALE-SOCKS

"He's took 'ith all the sym't'ms,—thet 's one thing sure! Dretful pain in hez back an' l'ins, legs feel 's ef they hed telegraph-wires inside 'em workin' fur dear life, head aches, face fevered, pulse at 2.40, awful stetch in the side, an' pressed fur breath. You guess it's neuralogy, Lurindy? I do'no' nothin' abeout yer high-flyin' names fur rheumatiz. I don't guess so!"

"But, Aunt Mimy, what do you guess?" asked mother.

"I don' guess nothin' at all,—I nigh abeout know!"

"Well,—you don't think it's"–

"I on'y wish it mebbe the veryaloud,—I on'y wish it mebbe. But that's tew good luck ter happen ter one o' the name. No, Miss Ruggles, I—think—it's—the raal article at first hand."

"Goodness, Aunt Mimy! what"–

"Yes, I du; an' you'll all hev it stret through the femily, every one; you needn't expect ter go scot-free, Emerline, 'ith all your rosy cheeks; an' you'll all hev ter stay in canteen a month ter the least; an' ef you're none o' yer pertected by vaticination, I reckon I"–

"Well, Aunt Mimy, if that's your opinion, I'll harness the filly and drive over for Dr. Sprague."

"Lor'! yer no need ter du thet, Miss Ruggles,—I kin kerry yer all through jest uz well uz Dr. Sprague, an' a sight better, ef the truth wuz knowed. I tuk Miss Deacon Smiler an' her hull femily through the measles an' hoopin'-cough, like a parcel o' pigs, this fall. They du say Jane's in a poor way an' Nathan'l's kind o' declinin'; but, uz I know they say it jest ter spite me, I don' so much mind. You a'n't gwine now, be ye?"

"There's safety in a multitude of counsellors, you know, Aunt Mimy, and I think on the whole I had best."

"Wal! ef that's yer delib'rate ch'ice betwixt Dr. Sprague an' me, ye kin du ez ye like. I never force my advice on no one, 'xcept this,—I'd advise Emerline there ter throw them socks inter the fire; there'll never none o' them be fit ter sell, 'nless she wants ter spread the disease. Wal, I'm sorry yer 've concluded ter hev thet old quack Sprague; never hed no more diplomy 'n I; don' b'lieve he knows cow-pox from kine, when he sees it. The poor young man's hed his last well day, I'm afeard. Good-day ter ye; say good-bye fur me ter Stephen. I'll call ag'in, ef ye happen ter want any one ter lay him eout."

And, staying to light her little black pipe, she jerked together the strings of her great scarlet hood, wrapped her cloak round her like a sentinel at muster, and went puffing down the hill like a steamboat.

Aunt Mimy Ruggles wasn't any relation to us, I wouldn't have you think, though our name was Ruggles, too. Aunt Mimy used to sell herbs, and she rose from that to taking care of the sick, and so on, till once Dr. Sprague having proved that death came through her ignorance, she had to abandon some branches of her art; and she was generally roaming round the neighborhood, seeking whom she could devour in the others. And so she came into our house just at dinner-time, and mother asked her to sit by, and then mentioned Cousin Stephen, and she went up to see him, and so it was.

Now it can't be pleasant for any family to have such a thing turn up, especially if there's a pretty girl in it; and I suppose I was as pretty as the general run, at that time,—perhaps Cousin Stephen thought a trifle prettier; pink cheeks, blue eyes, and hair the color and shine of a chestnut when it bursts the burr, can't be had without one 's rather pleasant-looking; and then I'm very good-natured and quick-tempered, and I've got a voice for singing, and I sing in the choir, and a'n't afraid to open my mouth. I don't look much like Lurindy, to be sure; but then Lurindy's an old maid,—as much as twenty-five,—and don't go to singing-school.—At least, these thoughts ran through my head as I watched Aunt Mimy down the hill.—Lurindy a'n't so very pretty, I continued to think,—but she's so very good, it makes up. At sewing-circle and quilting and frolics, I'm as good as any; but somehow I'm never any 'count at home; that's because Lurindy is by, at home. Well, Lurindy has a little box in her drawer, and there's a letter in it, and an old geranium-leaf, and a piece of black silk ribbon that looks too broad for anything but a sailor's necktie, and a shell. I don't know what she wants to keep such old stuff for, I'm sure.

We're none so rich,—I suppose I may as well tell the truth, that we're nearly as poor as poor can be. We've got the farm, but it's such a small one that mother and I can carry it on ourselves, with now and then a day's help or a bee,—but a bee's about as broad as it is long,—and we raise just enough to help the year out, but don't sell. We've got a cow and the filly and some sheep; and mother shears and cards, and Lurindy spins,—I can't spin, it makes my head swim,—and I knit, knit socks and sell them. Sometimes I have needles almost as big as a pipe-stem, and choose the coarse, uneven yarn of the thrums, and then the work goes off like machinery. Why, I can knit two pair, and sometimes three, a day, and get just as much for them as I do for the nice ones,—they're warm. But when I want to knit well, as I did the day Aunt Mimy was in, I take my best blue needles and my fine white yarn from the long wool, and it takes me from daybreak till sundown to knit one pair. I don't know why Aunt Jemimy should have said what she did about my socks; I'm sure Stephen hadn't been any nearer them than he had to the cabbage-bag Lurindy was netting, and there wasn't such a nice knitter in town as I, everybody will tell you. She always did seem to take particular pleasure in hectoring and badgering me to death.

Well, I wasn't going to be put down by Aunt Mimy, so I made the needles fly while mother was gone for the doctor. By-and-by I heard a knock up in Stephen's room,—I suppose he wanted something,—but Lurindy didn't hear it, and I didn't so much want to go, so I sat still and began to count out loud the stitches to my narrowings. By-and-by he knocked again.

"Lurindy," says I, "a'n't that Steve a-knocking?"

"Yes," says she,—"why don't you go?"—for I had been tending him a good deal that day.

"Well," says I, "there's a number of reasons; one is, I'm just binding off my heel."

Lurindy looked at me a minute, then all at once she smiled.

"Well, Emmy," says she, "if you like a smooth skin more than a smooth conscience, you're welcome,"—and went up-stairs herself.

I suppose I had ought to 'a' gone, and I suppose I'd ought to wanted to have gone, but somehow it wasn't so much fear as that I didn't want to see Stephen himself now. So Lurindy stayed up chamber, and was there when mother and the doctor come. And the doctor said he feared Aunt Mimy was right, and nobody but mother and Lurindy must go near Stephen, (you see, he found Lurindy there,) and they must have as little communication with me as possible. And his boots creaked down the back-stairs, and then he went.

Mother came down a little while after, for some water to put on Stephen's head, which was a good deal worse, she said; and about the middle of the evening I heard her crying for me to come and help them hold him,—he was raving. I didn't go very quick; I said, "Yes,—just as soon as I've narrowed off my toe"; and when at last I pushed back my chair to go, mother called in a disapproving voice and said that they'd got along without me and I'd better go to bed.

Well, after I was in bed I began to remember all that had happened lately. Somehow my thoughts went back to the first time Cousin Stephen came to our place, when I was a real little girl, and mother'd sent me to the well and I had dropped the bucket in, and he ran straight down the green slippery stones and brought it up, laughing. Then I remembered how we'd birds-nested together, and nutted, and come home on the hay-carts, and how we'd been in every kind of fun and danger together; and how, when my new Portsmouth lawn took fire, at Martha Smith's apple-paring, he caught me right in his arms and squeezed out the fire with his own hands; and how, when he saw once I had a notion of going with Elder Hooper's son James, he stepped aside till I saw what a nincom Jim Hooper was, and then he appeared as if nothing had happened, and was just as good as ever; and how, when the ice broke on Deacon Smith's pond, and I fell in, and the other boys were all afraid, Steve came and saved my life again at risk of his own; and how he always seemed to think the earth wasn't good enough for me to walk on; and how I'd wished, time and again, I might have some way to pay him back; and here it was, and I'd failed him. Then I remembered how I'd been to his place in Berkshire,—a rich old farm, with an orchard that smelled like the Spice Islands in the geography, with apples and pears and quinces and peaches and cherries and plums,—and how Stephen's mother, Aunt Emeline, had been as kind to me as one's own mother could be. But now Aunt Emeline and Uncle 'Siah were dead, and Stephen came a good deal oftener over the border than he'd any right to. Today, he brought some of those new red-streaks, and wanted mother to try them; next time, they'd made a lot more maple-sugar on his place than he wanted; and next time, he thought mother's corn might need hoeing, or it was fine weather to get the grass in: I don't know what we should have done without him. Then I thought how Stephen looked, the day he was pall-bearer to Charles Payson, who was killed sudden by a fall,—so solemn and pale, nowise craven, but just up to the occasion, so that, when the other girls burst out crying at sight of the coffin and at thought of Charlie, I cried, too,—but it was only because Stephen looked so beautiful. Then I remembered how he looked the other day when he came, his cheeks were so red with the wind, and his hair, those bright curls, was all blown about, and he laughed with the great hazel eyes he has, and showed his white teeth;—and now his beauty would be spoiled, and he'd never care for me again, seeing I hadn't cared for him. And the wind began to come up; and it was so lonesome and desolate in that little bed-room down-stairs, I felt as if we were all buried alive; and I couldn't get to sleep; and when the sleet and snow began to rattle on the pane, I thought there wasn't any one to see me and I'd better cry to keep it company; and so I sobbed off to dreaming at last, and woke at sunrise and found it still snowing.

Next morning, I heard mother stepping across the kitchen, and when I came out, she said Lurindy'd just gone to sleep; they'd had a shocking night. So I went out and watered the creatures and milked Brindle, and got mother a nice little breakfast, and made Stephen some gruel. And then I was going to ask mother if I'd done so very wrong in letting Lurindy nurse Stephen, instead of me; and then I saw she wasn't thinking about that; and besides, there didn't really seem to be any reason why she shouldn't;—she was a great deal older than I, and so it was more proper; and then Stephen hadn't ever said anything to me that should give me a peculiar right to nurse him more than other folks. So I just cleared away the things, made everything shine like a pin, and took my knitting. I'd no sooner got the seam set than I was called to send something up on a contrivance mother'd rigged in the back-entry over a pulley. And then I had to make a red flag, and find a stick, and hang it out of the window by which there were the most passers. Well, I did it; but I didn't hurry,—I didn't get the flag out till afternoon; somehow I hated to, it always seemed such a low-lived disease, and I was mortified to acknowledge it, and I knew nobody'd come near us for so long,—though goodness knows I didn't want to see anybody. Well, when that was done, Lurindy came down, and I had to get her something to eat, and then she went up-stairs, and mother took her turn for some sleep; and there were the creatures to feed again, and what with putting on, and taking off, and tending fires, and doing errands, and the night's milking, and clearing the paths, I didn't knit another stitch that day, and was glad enough, when night came, to go to bed myself.

Well, so we went on for two or three days. I'd got my second sock pretty well along in that time,—just think! half a week knitting half a sock!—and was setting the heel, when in came Aunt Mimy.

"I a'n't afeard on it," says she; "don't you be skeert. I jest stepped in ter see ef the young man wuz approachin' his eend."

"No," said I, "he isn't, any more than you are, Aunt Mimy."

"Any more 'n I be?" she answered. "Don't you lose yer temper, Emerline. We're all approachin' it, but some gits a leetle ahead; it a'n't no disgrace, ez I knows on. What yer doin' of? Knittin' sale-socks yet? and, my gracious! still ter work on the same pair! You'll make yer fortin', Emerline!"

I didn't say anything, I was so provoked.

"I don' b'lieve you know heow ter take the turns w'en yer mother a'n't by to help," she continued. "Can't ye take up the heel? Widden ev'ry fourth. Here, let me! You won't? Wal, I alluz knowed you wuz mighty techy, Emerline Ruggles, but ye no need ter fling away in thet style. Neow I'll advise ye ter let socks alone; they're tew intricate fur sech ez you. Mitt'ns is jest abeout 'ithin the compass uv your mind,—mitt'ns, men's single mitt'ns, put up on needles larger 'n them o' yourn be, an' by this rule. Seventeen reounds in the wrist,—tew an' one's the best seam"–

"Now, Miss Jemimy, just as if I didn't know how to knit mittens!"

"Wal, it seems you don't," said she, "though I don' deny but you may know heow ter give 'em; an' ez I alluz like ter du w'at good I kin, I'm gwine ter show ye."

"Show away," says I; "but I'll be bound, I've knit and sold and eaten up more mittens than ever you put your hands in!"

"Du tell! I'm glad to ha' heern you've got sech a good digestion," says she, hunting up a piece of paper to light her pipe. "Wal, ez I wuz sayin'," says she, "tew an' one's the best seam, handiest an' 'lastickest; twenty stetches to a needle, cast up so loose thet the fust one's ter one eend uv the needle an' the last ter t'other eend,—thet gives a good pull."

"I guess your smoke will hurt Stephen's head," said I, thinking to change her ideas.

"Oh, don't you bother abeout Stephen's head; ef it can't stan' thet,'t a'n't good fur much. Wal, an' then you set yer thumb an' knit plain, 'xcept a seam-stetch each side uv yer thumb; an' you widden tew stetches, one each side,—s'pose ye know heow ter widden? an' narry?—ev'ry third reound, tell yer 've got nineteen stetches acrost yer thumb; then ye knit, 'ithout widdenin', a matter uv seven or eight reounds more,–you listenin', Emerline?"

"Lor', Miss Jemimy, don't you know better than to ask questions when I'm counting? Now I've got to go and begin all over again."

"Highty-tighty, Miss! You're a weak sister, ef ye can't ceount an' chat, tew. Wal, ter make a long matter short, then ye drop yer thumb onter some thread an' cast up seven stetches an' knit reound fur yer hand, an' every other time you narry them seven stetches away ter one, fur the gore."

"Dear me, Aunt Mimy! do be quiet a minute! I believe mother's a-calling."

"I'll see," said Aunt Mimy,—and she stepped to the door and listened.

"No," says she, coming back on tiptoe,—"an' you didn't think you heern any one neither. It's ruther small work fur ter be foolin' an old woman. Hows'ever, I don' cherish grudges; so, ez I wuz gwine ter say, ye knit thirty-six reounds above wheer ye dropped yer thumb, an' then ye toe off in ev'ry fifth stetch, an' du it reg'Iar, Emerline; an' then take up yer thumb on tew needles, an' on t'other you pick up the stetches I told yer ter cast up, an' knit twelve reounds, an' thumb off 'ith narryin' ev'ry third"–

"Well, Miss Jemimy, I guess I shall know how to knit mittens, now!"

"Ef ye don't, 't a'n't my fault. When you've fastened off the eends, you roll 'em up in a damp towel, an' press 'em 'ith a middlin' warm iron on the wrong side. There!"

After this, Miss Mimy smoked awhile in silence, satisfied and gratified.

At last she knocked the ashes out of her pipe.

"Wal," says she, "I must be onter my feet. I'd liked ter seen yer ma, but I won't disturb her, an' you can du ez well. Yer ma promised me a mess o' tea, an' I guess I may ez well take it neow ez any day."

"Why, Miss Mimy," said I, "there a'n't above four or five messes left, and we can't get any more till I sell my socks."

"Wal, never mind, then, you can le' me take one, an' mebbe I kin make up the rest at Miss Smilers's."

So I went into the pantry to get it, and Aunt Mimy followed me, of course.

"Them's nice-lookin' apples," said she. "Come from Stephen's place? Poor young man, he won't never want 'em! S'pose he won't hev no objection ter my tryin' a dozen,"—and she dropped that number into her great pocket.

"Nice-lookin' butter, tew," said she. "Own churnin'? Wal, you kin du sunthin', Emerline. W'en I wuz a heousekeeper, I used ter keep the femily in butter an' sell enough to Miss Smith—she thet wuz Mary Breown—ter buy our shoes, all off uv one ceow. S'pose I take this pat?"

I was kind of dumfoundered at first; I forgot Aunt Mimy was the biggest beggar in Rockingham County.

"No," says I, as soon as I got my breath, "I sha'n't suppose any such thing. You're as well able to make your butter as I am to make it for you."

"Wal, Emerline Ruggles! I alluz knowed you wuz close ez the bark uv a tree; it's jest yer father's narrer-contracted sperrit; you don' favor yer ma a speck. She's ez free ez water."

"If mother's a mind to give away her eye-teeth, it don't follow that I should," said I; "and I won't give you another atom; and you just clear out!"

"Wal, you kin keep yer butter, sence you're so sot on it, an' I'll take a leetle dust o' pork instead."

"Let's see you take it!" said I.

"I guess I'll speak 'ith yer ma. I shall git a consider'ble bigger piece, though I don't like ter add t' 'er steps."

"Now look here, Miss Mimy," says I,—"if you'll promise not to ask for another thing, and to go right away, I'll get you a piece of pork."

So I went down cellar, and fished round in the pork-barrel and found quite a respectable piece. Coming up, just as my head got level with the floor, what should I see but Miss Jemimy pour all the sugar into her bag and whip the bowl back on the shelf, and turn round and face me as innocent as Moses in the bulrushes. After she had taken the pork, she looked round a minute and said,—

"Wal, arter all, I nigh upon forgot my arrant. Here's a letter they giv' me fur Lurindy, at the post-office; ev'rybody else's afeard ter come up here";—and by-and-by she brought it up from under all she'd stowed away there. "Thet jest leaves room," says she.

"For what?" says I.

"Fur tew or three uv them eggs."

I put them into her bag and said,

"Now you remember your promise, Aunt Mimy!"

"Lor' sakes!" says she, "you're in a mighty berry ter git me off. Neow you've got all you kin out uv me, the letter, 'n' the mitt'ns, I may go, may I? I niver see a young gal so furrard 'ith her elders in all my born days! I think Stephen Lee's well quit uv ye, fur my part, ef he hed to die ter du it. I don't 'xpect ye ter thank me fur w'at instruction I gi'n ye;—there's some folks I niver du 'xpect nothin' from; you can't make a silk pus out uv a sow's ear. W'at ye got thet red flag out the keepin'-room winder fur? 'Cause Lurindy's nussin' Stephen? Wal, good-day!"

And so Aunt Mimy disappeared, and the pat of butter with her.

I called Lurindy and gave her the letter, and after a little while I heard my name, and Lurindy was sitting on the top of the stairs with her head on her knees, and mother was leaning over the banisters. Pretty soon Lurindy lifted up her head, and I saw she had been crying, and between the two I made out that Lurindy'd been engaged a good while to John Talbot, who sailed out of Salem on long voyages to India and China; and that now he'd come home, sick with a fever, and was lying at the house of his aunt, who wasn't well herself; and as he'd given all his money to help a shipmate in trouble, she couldn't hire him a nurse, and there he was; and, finally, she'd consider it a great favor, if Lurindy would come down and help her.

Now Lurindy'd have gone at once, only she'd been about Stephen, so that she'd certainly carry the contagion, and might be taken sick herself, as soon as she arrived; and mother couldn't go and take care of John, for the same reason; and there was nobody but me. Lurindy had a half-eagle that John had given her once to keep; and I got a little bundle together and took all the precautions Dr. Sprague advised; and he drove me off in his sleigh, and said, as he was going about sixteen miles to see a patient, he'd put me on the cars at the nearest station. Well, he stopped a minute at the post-office, and when he came out he had another letter for Lurindy. I took it, and, after a moment, concluded I'd better read it.

"What are you about?" says the Doctor; "your name isn't Lurindy, is it?"

"I wish it was," says I, "and then I shouldn't be here."

"Oh! you're sorry to leave Stephen?" says he. "Well, you can comfort yourself with reflecting that Lurindy's a great deal the best nurse."

As if that was any comfort! If Lurindy was the best nurse, she'd ought to have had the privilege of taking care of her own lover, and not of other folks's. Besides, for all I knew, Stephen would be dead before ever I came back, and here I was going away and leaving him! Well, I didn't feel so very bright; so I read the letter. The Doctor asked me what ailed John Talbot. I thought, if I told him that Miss Jane Talbot wrote now so that Lurindy shouldn't come, and that he was sick just as Stephen was, he wouldn't let me go. So I said I supposed he'd burnt his mouth, like the man in the South, eating cold pudding and porridge; men always cried out at a scratch. And he said, "Oh, do they?" and laughed.

After about two hours' driving, there came a scream as if all the panthers in Coos County were let loose to yell, and directly we stopped at a little place where a red flag was hung out. I asked the Doctor if they'd got the small-pox here, too; but before he could answer, the thunder running along the ground deafened me, and in a minute he had put me inside the cars and was off.

I was determined I wouldn't appear green before so many folks, though I'd never seen the cars before; so I took my seat, and paid my fare to Old Salem, and looked about me. Pretty soon a woman came bustling in from somewhere, and took the seat beside me. There she fidgeted round so that I thought I should have flown.

"Miss," says she, at length, "will you close your window? I never travel with a window open; my health's delicate."

I tried to shut it, but it wouldn't go up or down, till a gentleman put out his cane and touched it, and down it slid, like Signor Blitz. It did seem as if everything about the cars went by miracle. I thanked him, but I found afterward it would have been more polite not to have spoken. After that woman had done everything she could think of to plague and annoy the whole neighborhood, she got out at Ipswich, and somebody met her that looked just like our sheriff; and I shouldn't be a bit surprised to hear that she'd gone to jail. When she got out, somebody else got in, and took the same seat.

"Miss," says she, "will you have the goodness to open your window? this air is stifling."

And she did everything that the other woman didn't do. When she found I wouldn't talk, she turned to the young gentleman and lady that sat opposite, and that looked as if there was a great deal too much company in the cars, and found they wouldn't talk either, and at last she caught the conductor and made him talk.

AH this while we were swooping over the country in the most terrific manner. I thought how frightened mother and Lurindy'd be, if they should see me. It was no use trying to count the cattle or watch the fences, and the birch-trees danced rigadoons enough to make one dizzy, and we dashed through everybody's back-yard, and ran so close up to the kitchens that we could have seen what they had for dinner, if we had stayed long enough; and finally I made up my mind that the engine had run away with the driver, and John Talbot would never have me to tend him; and I began to wonder, as I saw the sparks and cinders and great clouds of steam and smoke, if those tornadoes that smash round so out West in the newspapers weren't just passenger-trains, like us, off the track,—when all at once it grew as dark as midnight.

"Now," says I to myself, "it's certain. They've run the thing into the ground. However, we can't go long now."

And just as I was thinking about Korah and his troop, I remembered what the Doctor had told me about Salem Tunnel, and it began to grow lighter, and we began to go slower, and I picked up my wits and looked about me again. I had only time to notice that the young gentleman and lady looked very much relieved, and to shake my shawl from the clutch of the woman beside me, when we stopped at Salem, safe and sound.

I had a good deal of trouble to find Miss Talbot's house, but find it I did; and the first thing she gave me was a scolding for coming, thinking I was Lurindy, and her tongue wasn't much cooler when she found I wasn't; and then finally she said, as long as I was there, I might stay; and I went right up to see John, and a sight he was!

It was about three months I stayed and took the greater part of the care of him. Sometimes in the midnight, when he was quite beside himself, and dreaming out loud, it was about as good as a story-book to hear him. He told me of some great Indian cities where there were men in white, with skins swarthier than old red Guinea gold, and with great shawls all wrought in palm-leaves of gold and crimson bound on their heads, who could sink a ship with their lacs of rupees; and of islands where the shores came down to the water's edge and unrolled like a green ribbon, and brooks came sparkling down behind them, and great trees hung above like banners, and beautiful women came off on rafts and skiffs loaded with fruit,—the islands set like jewels on the back of the sea, and the sky covered them with light and hung above them bluer than the hangings of the Tabernacle, and they sent long rivers of spice out on the air to entice the sailor back,—islands where night never came. Sometimes, when he talked on so, I remembered that I'd felt rather touched up when I found that Lurindy'd had a sweetheart all this time, and mother knew it, and they'd never told me, and I wondered how it happened. Now it came across me, that, quite a number of years before, Lurindy had gone to Salem and worked in the mills. She didn't stay long, because it didn't agree with her,—the neighbors said, because she was lazy. Lurindy lazy, indeed! There a'n't one of us knows how to spell the first syllable of that word. But that's where she must have got acquainted with John Talbot. He'd been up at our place, too; but I was over to Aunt Emeline's, it seems. But one night, about this time, I thought he was dying, he'd got so very low; and I thought how dreadful it was for Lurindy never to see him again, and how it was all my selfish fault, and how maybe he wouldn't 'a' died, if he'd had her to have taken care of him; and I suppose no convicted felon ever endured more remorse than I did, sitting and watching that dying man all that long and lonely night. But with the morning he was better,—they always are a great deal worse when they are getting well from it; he laughed when the doctor came, and said he guessed he'd weathered that gale; and by-and-by he got well.