Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - The Jamesons

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"I know all that," said Caroline; "I am not blaming her so much
as I am her mother. She had better have stopped reading Browning
and improving her own mind and the village, and improved her own
daughter, so she could walk in the way Providence has set for a
woman without disgracing herself. But I am looking at her as she is,
without any question of blame, for the sake of my son. He shall not
marry a girl who don't know how to make his home comfortable any
better than she does--not if his mother can save him from it."

Louisa asked timidly--we were both of us rather timid, Caroline was
so fierce--if she did not think she could teach Harriet.

"I don't know whether I can or not!" said Caroline. "Anyway, I am not
going to try. What kind of a plan would it be for me to have her in
the house teaching her, where Harry could see her every day, and
perhaps after all find out that it would not amount to anything. I'd
rather try to cure drink than make a good housewife of a girl who
hasn't been brought up to it. How do I know it's in her? And there I
would have her right under Harry's nose. She shall never marry him;
I can't and I won't have it."

Louisa and I speculated as to whether Caroline would be able to help
it, when she had taken her leave after what seemed to us must have
been a most unsatisfactory call, with not enough sympathy from us to
cheer her.

"Harry Liscom has a will, as well as his mother, and he is a man
grown, and running the woollen factory on shares with his father, and
able to support a wife. I don't believe he is going to stop, now the
girl's mother has consented, because his mother tells him to," said
Louisa; and I thought she was right.

That very evening Harry went past to the Jamesons, in his best suit,
carrying a cane, which he swung with the assured air of a young man
going courting where he is plainly welcome.

"I am glad for one thing," said I, "and that is there is no more
secret strolling in my grove, but open sitting up in her mother's
parlor."

Louisa looked at me a little uncertainly, and I saw that there was
something which she wanted to say and did not quite dare.

"What is it?" said I.

"Well," said Louisa, hesitatingly, "I was thinking that I supposed--I
don't know that it would work at all--maybe her mother wouldn't be
willing, and maybe she wouldn't be willing herself--but I was
thinking that you were as good a housekeeper as Caroline Liscom,
and--you might have the girl in here once in a while and teach her."

"I will do it," said I at once,--"if I can, that is."

I found out that I could. The poor child was only too glad to come to
my house and take a few lessons in housekeeping. I waylaid her when
she was going past one day, and broached the subject delicately. I
said it was a good idea for a young girl to learn as much as she
could about keeping a house nice before she had one of her own, and
Harriet blushed as red as a rose and thanked me, and arranged to come
for her first lesson the very next morning. I got a large gingham
apron for her, and we began. I gave her a lesson in bread-making that
very day, and found her an apt pupil. I told her that she would make
a very good housekeeper--I should not wonder if as good as Mrs.
Liscom, who was, I considered, the best in the village; and she
blushed again and kissed me.

Louisa and I had been a little worried as to what Mrs. Jameson would
say; but we need not have been. Mrs. Jameson was strenuously engaged
in uprooting poison-ivy vines, which grew thickly along the walls
everywhere in the village. I must say it seemed Scriptural to me, and
made me think better in one way of Mrs. Jameson, since it did require
considerable heroism.

Luckily, old Martin was one of the few who are exempt from the
noxious influence of poison-ivy, and he pulled up the roots with
impunity, but I must say without the best success. Poison-ivy is a
staunch and persistent thing, and more than a match for Mrs. Jameson.
She suffered herself somewhat in the conflict, and went about for
some time with her face and hands done up in castor-oil, which we
consider a sovereign remedy for poison-ivy. Cobb, too, was more or
less a victim to his mother's zeal for uprooting noxious weeds.

It was directly after the poison-ivy that Mrs. Jameson made what may
be considered her grand attempt of the season. All at once she
discovered what none of the rest of us had thought of--I suppose we
must have been lacking in public feeling not to have done so--that
our village had been settled exactly one hundred years ago that very
August.

Mrs. Jameson came into our house with the news on the twenty-seventh
day of July. She had just found it out in an old book which had been
left behind and forgotten in the garret of the Wray house.

"We must have a centennial, of course," said she magisterially.

Louisa and I stared at her. "A centennial!" said I feebly. I think
visions of Philadelphia, and exhibits of the products of the whole
world in our fields and cow-pastures, floated through my mind.
Centennial had a stupendous sound to me, and Louisa said afterward
it had to her.

"How would you make it?" asked Louisa vaguely of Mrs. Jameson, as if
a centennial were a loaf of gingerbread.

Mrs. Jameson had formed her plans with the rapidity of a great
general on the eve of a forced battle. "We will take the oldest house
in town," said she promptly. "I think that it is nearly as old as the
village, and we will fit it up as nearly as possible like a house of
one hundred years ago, and we will hold our celebration there."

"Let me see, the oldest house is the Shaw house," said I.

"Why, Emily Shaw is living there," said Louisa in wonder.

"We shall make arrangements with her," returned Mrs. Jameson,
with confidence. She looked around our sitting-room, and eyed
our old-fashioned highboy, of which we are very proud, and an
old-fashioned table which becomes a chair when properly manipulated.
"Those will be just the things to go in one of the rooms," said she,
without so much as asking our leave.

"Emily Shaw's furniture will have to be put somewhere if so many
other things are to be moved in," suggested Louisa timidly; but Mrs.
Jameson dismissed that consideration with merely a wave of her hand.

"I think that Mrs. Simeon White has a swell-front bureau and an old
looking-glass which will do very well for one of the chambers," she
went on to say, "and Miss Clark has a mahogany table." Mrs. Jameson
went on calmly enumerating articles of old-fashioned furniture which
she had seen in our village houses which she considered suitable to
be used in the Shaw house for the centennial.

"I don't see how Emily Shaw is going to live there while all this is
going on," remarked Louisa in her usual deprecatory tone when
addressing Mrs. Jameson.

"I think we may be able to leave her one room," said Mrs. Jameson;
and Louisa and I fairly gasped when we reflected that Emily Shaw had
not yet heard a word of the plan.

"I don't know but Emily Shaw will put up with it, for she is pretty
meek," said Louisa when Mrs. Jameson had gone hurrying down the
street to impart her scheme to others; "but it is lucky for Mrs.
Jameson that Flora Clark hasn't the oldest house in town."

I said I doubted if Flora would even consent to let her furniture be
displayed in the centennial; but she did. Everybody consented to
everything. I don't know whether Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson had really
any hypnotic influence over us, or whether we had a desire for the
celebration, but the whole village marshalled and marched to her
orders with the greatest docility. All our cherished pieces of old
furniture were loaded into carts and conveyed to the old Shaw house.

The centennial was to be held the tenth day of August, and there was
necessarily quick work. The whole village was in an uproar; none of
us who had old-fashioned possessions fairly knew where we were
living, so many of them were in the Shaw house; we were short of
dishes and bureau drawers, and counterpanes and curtains. Mrs.
Jameson never asked for any of these things; she simply took them
as by right of war, and nobody gainsaid her, not even Flora Clark.
However, poor Emily Shaw was the one who displayed the greatest
meekness under provocation. The whole affair must have seemed
revolutionary to her. She was a quiet, delicate little woman, no
longer young. She did not go out much, not even to the sewing circle
or the literary society, and seemed as fond of her home as an animal
of its shell--as if it were a part of her. Old as her house was, she
had it fitted up in a modern, and, to our village ideas, a very
pretty fashion. Emily was quite well-to-do. There were nice tapestry
carpets on all the downstairs floors, lace curtains at the windows,
and furniture covered with red velvet in the parlor. She had also had
the old fireplaces covered up and marble slabs set. There was
handsome carved black walnut furniture in the chambers; and taken
altogether, the old Shaw house was regarded as one of the best
furnished in the village. Mrs. Sim White said she didn't know as she
wondered that Emily didn't like to go away from such nice things.

Now every one of these nice things was hustled out of sight to make
room for the pieces of old-fashioned furniture. The tapestry carpets
were taken up and stowed away in the garrets, the lace curtains
were pulled down. In their stead were the old sanded bare floors
and curtains of homespun linen trimmed with hand-knitted lace.
Emily's nice Marseilles counterpanes were laid aside for the old
blue-and-white ones which our grandmothers spun and wove, and her
fine oil paintings gave way to old engravings of Webster death-bed
scenes and portraits of the Presidents, and samplers. Emily was left
one room to herself--a little back chamber over the kitchen--and she
took her meals at Flora Clark's, next door. She was obliged to do
that, for her kitchen range had been taken down, and there was only
the old fireplace furnished with kettles and crane to cook in.

"I suppose my forefathers used to get all their meals there," said
poor Emily Shaw, who has at all times a gentle, sad way of speaking,
and then seemed on the verge of uncomplaining tears, "but I don't
quite feel competent to undertake it now. It looks to me as if the
kettles might be hard to lift." Emily glanced at her hands and
wrists as she spoke. Emily's hands and arms are very small and bony,
as she is in her general construction, though she is tall.

The little chamber which she inhabited during the preparation for the
centennial was very hot in those midsummer days, and her face was
always suffused with a damp pink when she came out of it; but she
uttered no word of complaint, not even when they took down her marble
slabs and exposed the yawning mouths of the old fireplaces again. All
she said was once in a deprecatory whisper to me, to the effect that
she was a little sorry to have strangers see her house looking so,
but she supposed it was interesting.

We expected a number of strangers. Mrs. Sim White's brother, who had
gone to Boston when he was a young man and turned out so smart, being
the head of a large dry-goods firm, was coming, and was to make a
speech; and Mr. Elijah M. Mills, whose mother's people came from
Linnville, was to be there, as having a hereditary interest in the
village. Of course, everybody knows Elijah M. Mills. He was to make a
speech. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright, whose aunt on her father's side, Miss
Jane Beers, used to live in Linnville before she died, was to come
and read some selections from her own works. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright
writes quite celebrated stories, and reads them almost better than
she writes them. She has enormous prices, too, but she promised to
come to the centennial and read for nothing; she used to visit her
aunt in Linnville when she was a girl, and wrote that she had a
sincere love for the dear old place. Mrs. Jameson said that we were
very fortunate to get her.

Mrs. Jameson did not stop, however, at celebrities of local
traditions; she flew higher still. She wrote the Governor of the
State, inviting him to be present, and some of us were never quite
certain that she did not invite the President of the United States.
However, if she had done so, it seemed incredible that since he
was bidden by Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson he neither came nor wrote a
letter. The Governor of the State did not come, but he wrote a very
handsome letter, expressing the most heartfelt disappointment that he
was unable to be present on such an occasion; and we all felt very
sorry for him when we heard it read. Mrs. Sim White said that a
governor's life must be a hard one, he must have to deny himself many
pleasures. Our minister, the Rev. Henry P. Jacobs, wrote a long poem
to be read on the occasion; it was in blank verse like Young's "Night
Thoughts," and some thought he had imitated it; but it was generally
considered very fine, though we had not the pleasure of hearing it at
the centennial--why, I will explain later.

There was to be a grand procession, of course, illustrative of the
arts, trades, and professions in our village a hundred years ago and
at the present time, and Mrs. Jameson engineered that. I never saw a
woman work as she did. Louisa and I agreed that she could not be so
very delicate after all. She had a finger in everything except the
cooking; that she left mostly to the rest of us, though she did break
over in one instance to our sorrow. We made pound-cake, and cupcake,
and Indian puddings, and pies, and we baked beans enough for a
standing army. Of course, the dinner was to be after the fashion of
one of a hundred years ago. The old oven in the Shaw kitchen was to
be heated, and Indian puddings and pies baked in it; but that would
not hold enough for such a multitude as we expected, so we all baked
at home--that is, all except Caroline Liscom. She would not bake a
thing because Mrs. Jameson got up the centennial, and she declared
that she would not go. However, she changed her mind, which was
fortunate enough as matters afterward transpired.

The tenth of August, which was the one hundredth anniversary of the
settlement of our village, dawned bright and clear, for which we were
thankful, though it was very hot. The exercises were to begin at
eleven o'clock in the morning with the procession. We were to
assemble at the old Shaw house at half-past twelve; the dinner was to
be at half-past one, after an hour of social intercourse which would
afford people an opportunity of viewing the house, and a few of us an
opportunity of preparing the dinner. After dinner were to be the
speeches and readings, which must be concluded in season for the
out-of-town celebrities to take the Grover stage-coach to connect
with the railroad train.

By eight o'clock people began to arrive from other villages, and to
gather on the street corners to view the procession. It was the very
first procession ever organized in our village, and we were very
proud of it. For the first time Mrs. Jameson began to be regarded
with real gratitude and veneration as a local benefactress. We told
all the visitors that Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson got up the centennial,
and we were proud that she was one of us when we saw her driving
past in the procession. We thought it exceedingly appropriate
that the Jamesons--Mr. Jameson had come on from New York for the
occasion--should ride in the procession with the minister and the
lawyer in a barouche from Grover. Barouches seemed that day to be
illustrative of extremest progress in carriages, in contrast with the
old Linnville and Wardville stage-coaches, and the old chaise and
doctor's sulky, all of which had needed to be repaired with infinite
care, and were driven with gingerly foresight, lest they fall to
pieces on the line of march. We really pitied the village doctor in
the aged sulky, for it seemed as if he might have to set a bone for
himself by reason of the sudden and total collapse of his vehicle.
Mrs. Jameson had decreed that he should ride in it, however, and
there was no evading her mandate.

Mrs. Jameson looked very imposing in her barouche, and we were glad
that she wore one of her handsome black silks instead of her sensible
short costume. There was a good deal of jet about the waist, and her
bonnet was all made of jet, with a beautiful tuft of pink roses on
the front, and she glittered resplendently as she rode past, sitting
up very straight, as befitted the dignity of the occasion.

"That is Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson," said we, and we mentioned
incidentally that the gentleman beside her was Mr. Jameson. We were
not as proud of him, since all that he had done which we knew of was
to lose all his money and have his friends get him a place in the
custom-house; he was merely a satellite of his wife, who had gotten
up our centennial.

Words could not express the admiration which we all felt for the
procession. It was really accomplished in a masterly manner,
especially taking into consideration the shortness of the time for
preparation; but that paled beside the wonders of the old Shaw house.
I was obliged to be in the kitchen all during that hour of inspection
and social intercourse, but I could hear the loud bursts of
admiration. The house seemed full of exclamation-points. Flora Clark
said for her part she could not see why folks could not look at a
thing and think it was pretty without screaming; but she was tired,
and probably a little vexed at herself for working so hard when
Mrs. Jameson had gotten up the centennial. It was very warm in the
kitchen, too, for Mrs. Jameson had herself started the hearth fire in
order to exemplify to the utmost the old custom. The kettles on the
crane were all steaming. Flora Clark said it was nonsense to have a
hearth-fire on such a hot day because our grandmothers were obliged
to, but she was in the minority. Most of the ladies were inclined to
follow Mrs. Jameson's lead unquestionably on that occasion. They even
exclaimed admiringly over two chicken pies which she brought, and
which I must say had a singular appearance. The pastry looked very
hard and of a curious leaden color. Mrs. Jameson said that she made
them herself out of whole wheat, without shortening, and she
evidently regarded them as triumphs of wholesomeness and culinary
skill. She furthermore stated that she had remained up all night to
bake them, which we did not doubt, as Hannah Bell, her help, had been
employed steadily in the old Shaw house. Mrs. Jameson had cut the
pies before bringing them, which Flora Clark whispered was necessary.
"I know that she had to cut them with a hatchet and a hammer,"
whispered she; and really when we came to try them later it did not
seem so unlikely. I never saw such pastry, anything like the
toughness and cohesiveness of it; the chicken was not seasoned well,
either. We could eat very little; with a few exceptions, we could do
no more than taste of it, which was fortunate.

I may as well mention here that the few greedy individuals, who
I fancy frequent all social functions with an undercurrent of
gastronomical desire for their chief incentive, came to grief by
reason of Mrs. Jameson's chicken pies. She baked them without that
opening in the upper crust which, as every good housewife knows, is
essential, and there were dire reports of sufferings in consequence.
The village doctor, after his precarious drive in the ancient sulky,
had a night of toil. Caleb--commonly called Kellup--Bates, and his
son Thomas, were the principal sufferers, they being notorious eaters
and the terrors of sewing-circle suppers. Flora Clark confessed to
me that she was relieved when she saw them out again, since she had
passed the pies to them three times, thinking that such devourers
would stop at nothing and she might as well save the delicacies for
the more temperate.

We were so thankful that none of the out-of-town celebrities ate Mrs.
Jameson's chicken pies, since they had a rather unfortunate
experience as it was. The dinner was a very great success, and Flora
Clark said to me that if people a hundred years ago ate those hearty,
nourishing victuals as these people did, she didn't wonder that the
men had strength to found a Republic, but she did wonder how the
women folks who had to cook for them had time and strength to live.

After dinner the speechifying began. The Rev. Henry P. Jacobs made
the opening address; we had agreed that he should be invited to do
so, since he was the minister. He asked the blessing before we began
to eat, and made the opening address afterward. Mr. Jacobs is
considered a fine speaker, and he is never at a loss for ideas. We
all felt proud of him as he stood up and began to speak of the state
of the Linnville church a hundred years ago, and contrasted those
days of fireless meeting-houses with the comforts of the sanctuary at
the present time. He also had a long list of statistics. I began at
last to feel a little uneasy lest he might read his poem, and so rob
the guests who were to speak of their quotas of time. Louisa said she
thought he was intending to, but she saw Mrs. Jameson whisper to her
husband, who immediately tiptoed around to him with a scared and
important look, and said something in a low voice. Then the minister,
with a somewhat crestfallen air, curtailed his remarks, saying
something about his hoping to read a poem a little later on that
auspicious occasion, but that he would now introduce Mrs. H. Boardman
Jameson, to whom they were all so much indebted.

Mrs. Jameson arose and bowed to the company, and adjusted her
eyeglasses. Her jets glittered, her eyes shone with a commanding
brightness, and she really looked very imposing. After a few words,
which even Flora Clark acknowledged were very well chosen, she read
the Governor's letter with great impressiveness. Then she went on to
read other letters from people who were noteworthy in some way and
had some association with the village. Flora Clark said that she
believed that Mrs. Jameson had written to every celebrity whose
grandfather ever drove through Linnville. She did have a great many
letters from people who we were surprised to hear had ever heard of
us, and they were very interesting. Still it did take time to read
them; and after she had finished them all, Mrs. Jameson commenced to
speak on her own account. She had some notes which she consulted
unobtrusively from time to time. She dwelt mainly upon the vast
improvement for the better in our condition during the last hundred
years. She mentioned in this connection Robert Browning, the benefit
of whose teaching was denied our ancestors of a hundred years ago.
She also mentioned hygienic bread as a contrast to the heavy,
indigestible masses of corn-meal concoctions and the hurtful richness
of pound-cake. Mrs. Jameson galloped with mild state all her little
hobbies for our delectation, and the time went on. We had sat
very long at dinner; it was later than we had planned when the
speechifying began. Mrs. Jameson did not seem to be in the least
aware of the flight of time as she peacefully proceeded; nor did she
see how we were all fidgeting. Still, nobody spoke to her; nobody
quite dared, and then we thought every sentence would be her last.

The upshot of it was that the Grover stage-coach arrived, and Mrs.
Sim White's brother, Elijah M. Mills, and Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright,
besides a number of others of lesser fame, were obliged to leave
without raising their voices, or lose their trains, which for such
busy people was not to be thought of. There was much subdued
indignation and discomfiture among us, and I dare say among the
guests themselves. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright was particularly haughty,
even to Mrs. Sim White, who did her best to express her regret
without blaming Mrs. Jameson. As for Elijah M. Mills, Louisa said
she heard him say something which she would not repeat, when he was
putting on his hat. He is a fine speaker, and noted for the witty
stories which he tells; we felt that we had missed a great deal.
I must say, to do her justice, that Mrs. Jameson seemed somewhat
perturbed, and disposed to be conciliating when she bade the guests
good-by; she was even apologetic in her calmly superior way.

However, the guests had not been gone long before something happened
to put it all out of our minds for the time. The Rev. Henry P. Jacobs
had just stood up again, with a somewhat crestfallen air, to read his
poem--I suppose he was disappointed to lose the more important part
of his audience--when there was a little scream, and poor Harriet
Jameson was all in a blaze. She wore a white muslin dress, and
somehow it had caught--I suppose from a spark; she had been sitting
near the hearth, though we had thought the fire was out. Harry Liscom
made one spring for her when he saw what had happened; but he had not
been very near her, and a woman was before him. She caught up the
braided rug from the floor, and in a second Harriet was borne down
under it, and then Harry was there with his coat, and Sim White, and
the fire was out. Poor Harriet was not much hurt, only a few trifling
burns; but if it had not been for the woman she might easily have
gotten her death, and our centennial ended in a tragedy.

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