Various - Autumn Leaves
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Various >> Autumn Leaves
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"Etty, mind you side with me," said Flora.
"Be an impartial umpire, Miss Etty," said I, "and you will be on my
side."
Little Ugly was obliged to confess that she had not heard a word of
the matter, her thoughts being elsewhere, intently engaged.
"I must request you to excuse my inattention," she said, "and to
repeat what you were saying."
"The latter request I scorn to grant," said I, "and the former we will
consider about when we have heard what thoughts have been preferred to
our most edifying conversation."
"You shall tell us," said Flora. "Yes, or we till go off and leave you
to your meditations, here in the dark woods, with the owls and the
tree-toads, whom you probably prefer for company."
Miss Etty condescended to confess she should be frightened without my
manful protection.--Quite a triumph!
"I must thank you," she said, "for the novelty of an evening walk in
the woods. I enjoy it, I confess, very highly. Look at those dark,
mysterious vistas, and those deepening shadows blending the bank with
its mirror; how different from the trite daylight truth! It took
strong hold of my imagination."
"Go on. And so you were thinking--"
"I was hardly doing so much as thinking. I was seeing it to remember."
"Etty draws like an artist," said Flora, in a whisper.
"I was taking a mental daguerreotype of my companions, by twilight,
and of all the scene round, too, in the same grey tint, just to look
at some ten or fifteen years hence, when--"
"Let us all three agree," said I, "on the 28th of September, 18--, to
remember this evening. I am certain _I_ shall look back to it with
pleasure."
"O horrid!" shrieked Flora; "how can you talk so! By that time you
will be a shocking, middle-aged sort of person! I always wonder how
people can be resigned to live, when they have lost youth, and with it
all that makes life bearable! Fifteen years! Dismal thought! I shall
have outlived every thing I care about in life!" So moaned Little
Handsome.
"But you may have found new sources of interest," suggested I, perhaps
a little too tenderly, for I had some sympathy with her dread of that
particular phase of existence, middle-agedness. "Perhaps as the
mistress of a household--"
"Worse and worse!" screamed Flora. "A miserable comforter you are! As
if it were not enough merely to grow old, but one must be a slave and
a martyr, never doing any thing one would prefer to do, nor going
anywhere that one wants to go,--bound for ever to one spot, and one
perpetual companion--"
"Planning dinners every day for cooks hardly less ignorant than
yourself," added I, laughing at her selfish horror of matronly
bondage, yet provoked at it. "Miss Etty, would _you_, if you could,
stand still instead of going forward?"
"My happiness is altogether different from Flora's," she replied,
"though we were brought up side by side. What has taught me to be
independent of the world and its notice was my being continually
compared with her, and assured, with compassionate regret, that I had
none of those qualifications which could give me success in general
society."
"Which was a libel--" I began.
"Without the last syllable," said Flora, catching up the word.
"At any rate, I knew I was plain and shy, and made friends slowly. So
I chose such pleasures as should be under my own control, and could
never fail me. They make my life so much happier and more precious
than it was ten years ago, that I feel certain I shall have a wider
and fuller enjoyment of the same ten years hence."
What they are, I partly guess, and partly drew from her, in her
uncommonly frank mood. I begin to perceive that I, as well as Flora,
have been cherishing most mistaken and unsatisfactory aims. My surly
old inner self has often hinted as much, but I would not hear him.
Etty may have _her_ mistaken views too, but she has set me thinking.
Well, you crusty old curmudgeon, what has been my course since the awe
of the schoolmaster ceased to be a sort of external conscience?
"You told me study was none of my business," says Conscience, "and a
pretty piece of work you have made of it without me. Idle in college,
and, when you began to perceive the connection between study and what
people call success in life, overworking yourself, here you are, and
just beginning to bethink yourself that I might have furnished just
the right degree of stimulus, if you had but allowed it."--
Hark! hark! It is the duet! That silvery second is Etty's. I will
steal down stairs, and when they have ended, pop in, and it shall go
hard but I will have another song.
Parlor dark and empty. I fancied I heard Flora giggling somewhere, but
I might be mistaken. Yet the voices sounded as if they came from that
quarter--and--and I am sure I heard one note on the piano to give the
pitch. Hark! I hear the parlor door softly shut, and now the stairs
creak, and betray them stealing up, as they probably betrayed me
stealing down. They only blew out the lights and kept perfectly
still.--Witches!--Donkey!
Etty, your voice is still with me, clear, sweet, and penetrating, as
it was when you talked so eloquently to-night, in our dreamy ramble.--
What if I had early adopted her idea, that with every conscious power
is bound up both the duty and the pleasure of developing it? Might I
not now have reached higher ground, with health of body and mind?
Ambition is an unhealthy stimulus. A wretchedly uneasy guest too, in
the breast of an invalid. I would fain have a purer motive, which
shall dismiss or control it.
Etty,--what are the uses to be made of _her_ talents, while she lives
thus withdrawn into a world of her own? Certainly, she is wrong; I
shall convince her of it, when our friendship, now fairly planted, I
trust, shall have taken root. Now we shall be the best friends in the
world, and I will confide to her my--my--O, I am nodding over my
paper, and that click says the old clock at the stair-head is making
ready to announce midnight.
_Sept. 29th_. Capricious are the ways of womankind! Little Ugly is
more thoroughly self-occupied and undemonstrative than ever. I am
chagrined,--I think I am an ill-used man. I am downright angry and
have half a mind to flirt with Little Handsome, out of spite. Only
Miss Etty is too indifferent to care. I did but leave my old aunt to
Flora, and step back to remark that it was a pleasant Sunday, that the
sermon was homely and dull, and that the singing was discordant. Miss
Etty assented, but very coldly, and presently she bolted into an old
red house, and left me to go home by myself. When we started for
church again, she was among the missing, and we found her in the pew,
on our arrival. Thus pointedly to avoid me!--It might be accident,
however, for she did not refuse to sing from the same hymn-book with
me, and pointed to a verse on the other page, quaint, but
excellent. After all, old Watts has written the best hymns in the
language.
_Evening_. Without choice, I found myself walking round the pond
again. It was as smooth as glass, and the leaves scarcely trembled on
the trees and bushes round it. And in my heart reigned a similar calm.
A strange quiet has fallen on my usually restless and anxious mind. I
thought that in future I could be content not to look beyond the
present duty, and, having done my best in all circumstances, that I
could leave the results to follow as God wills. At that moment I could
sincerely say, "Let him set me high or low, wherever he has work for
me to perform." If I can remain thus quiet in mind, my health will
soon return, I feel assured.
"_If!_" A well-founded distrust, I fear. This peace must be only a
mood, to pass away when my natural spirits return. The fever of
covetousness, of rivalry, of envy, and ambitious earthly aspirations,
will come back. Like waves upon the lake, these uneasy feelings will
chase each other over my soul. I picked up a little linen wristband at
this moment, which I recognized. "She does not deserve to have it
again, sulky Little Ugly!" said I. "I will put it in my pocket-book,
and keep it as a remembrancer, for--I am glad to perceive--this is the
very spot where we stood when we agreed to remember it and each other
fifteen years hence. We will see what I shall be then, and I shall
have some aid from this funny little talisman; it will speak to me
quite as intelligibly and distinctly as its owner in a _silent_ mood,
at any rate."--
Heigh-ho! How lonely I feel to-night! Every human soul is--must be--a
hermit, yet there might be something nearer companionship than I have
found for mine as yet. No one knows me. My real self--Ha! old fellow,
I like you better than I did; let us be good friends.
_Sept. 30th_. A golden sunrise. How much one loses under a false idea
of its being a luxury to sleep in the morning! Reclining under Farmer
Puddingstone's elm, and looking upon the glassy pond, in which the
glowing sky mirrored itself, my soul was fired with poetic
inspiration. On the blank page of a letter, I wrote:
"How holy the calm, in the stillness of morn,"--
and threw down my paper, being suddenly quenched by self-ridicule, as
I was debating whether to write "To Ethelind" over the top. Returning
that way after my ramble, I found the following conclusion pinned to
the tree by a jackknife:--
"How holy the calm, in the stillness of morn,--
When to call 'em to breakfast Josh toots on the horn,
The ducks gives a quack, and the caow gives a moo,
And the childen chimes in with their plaintive boo-hoo.
"How holy the calm, in the stillness of neune,
When the pot is a singin its silvery teune,--
Its soft, woolly teune, jest like Aribi's Darter,
While the tea-kettle plays up the simperny arter.
"How holy the calm, in the stillness of night,
When the moon, like a punkin, looks yaller and bright;
While the aowls an' the katydids, screeching like time,
Jest brings me up close to the eend o' my rhyme."
And underneath was added, as if in scorn of my fruitless endeavor:--
"I wrote that are right off, as fast as you could shell corn. S.P."
I suppose it is by way of thanks for my having driven the pigs from
the garden, that I find a great bunch of dahlias adorning my
mantelpiece. A brown earthen pitcher! And in the middle of the
dahlias, a magnificent sunflower! It must be my aunt's doing, and its
very homeliness pleases me, just as I love her homely sincerity of
affection. Who arranges the glasses in the parlor? Etty, I would not
fear to affirm, from the asters and golden-rod, cheek by jole with
petunias and carnations. I wonder if she would not like some of the
clematis I saw twining about a dead tree by the pond. It is more
beautiful in its present state than when it was in flower. Etty loves
wild flowers because she is one herself, and loves to hide here in her
native nook, where no eye (I might except my own) gives her more than
a casual glance.--
_Noon_. "I shall think it quite uncivil of Little Ugly if she does not
volunteer to arrange my share of the booty I am bringing, now that I
have almost broken my neck, and quite my cane, to obtain it." This I
said to myself, as I came into the house by the kitchen entrance, and
proceeded to deposit my trailing treasures on Norah's table, by the
side of a yellow squash.
"Do go with me to Captain Black's," said Etty's voice at the side
door. "The old folks have not seen you since your return."
"I can't!" said Flora with a drawl.
"Yes, do! Be coaxable, for once!"
"It only makes me obstinate to coax. Why not go without me, I beg?"
"I am no novelty. I was in twice only yesterday. Old people like
attention from such as you, because--"
"Because it is unreasonable to expect it."
"The old man is failing."
"I can't do him any good. It is dusty, and my gown is long."
"It would please him to see you. I went to sit with him yesterday, but
Timothy Digfort came in, with the same intent. So I went to church,
having walked in the graveyard till the bell rang."
"Owl that you are! I don't envy you the lively meditations you must
have had. Why don't you go? It's of no use waiting for me."
"What! Will you let me carry both these baskets?"
"There, put the little one on the top of the other. I don't think
three or four peaches and a few flowers can add much to the weight. It
is tiresome enough to do what I don't want to do, when it is really
necessary."
And Little Handsome danced into the parlor, without perceiving me. I
laid a detaining hand on Etty's basket as she put herself in motion,
on which she turned round with a look of unfeigned astonishment.
"May I not be a substitute for Flora?" I inquired.
"I do not require any aid," said Miss Etty shyly. "It is not on that
account I was urging Flora. Please to let me have the basket.--Indeed,
it is quite unnecessary you should trouble yourself," she insisted, as
I persevered in carrying off my load.
"It is the old red house, is it not?" said I, "with the roof sloping
almost to the ground. And shall I say that _you_ sent this? A view of
my strange phiz will not refresh the old people like the sight of
Flora's fresh young face, but I shall go in, and make the agreeable as
well as I can."
"Are you really in earnest?" asked Etty, looking full in my face, with
a smile of wonder that made her radiantly beautiful. She turned away
blushing at my surprised and eager gaze, and, taking up her little
basket, joined me, without a word of answer on my part. It was some
time before I quite recovered from a strange flurry of spirits, which
made my heart bump very much as it does when I hear any unexpected
good news. And then I dashed away upon the subject of old age, and any
thing else that came uppermost, in the hope of drawing the
soul-lighted eyes to mine again, with that transfiguring smile playing
upon the lips.
But I was like an unskilful magician; I had lost the spell; I could
not again discover the spring I had touched. In vain I said to myself,
"I'll make her do it again!" Little Ugly would'nt!
She answered my incoherent sallies in her usual sedate manner, and I
believe it was only in my imagination that her cheek dimpled a little,
with a heightened color, now and then, when I was particularly
eloquent.
Introduced by Miss Etty, I was cordially welcomed. I am always
affected by the sight of an aged woman who at all reminds me of the
grandmother so indulgent to my prankful boyhood. The old man, too,
interested me; he has seen much of the world, in his seafaring life,
and related his adventures in a most unhackneyed style. I'll go and
see them every day. One of the Captain's anecdotes was very good. "An
old salt," he said, "once--once--" Bah, what was it? How very lovely
Etty looked, sitting on a cricket at the old woman's feet, and, with a
half smile on her face, submitting her polished little head to be
stroked by her trembling hands! This I saw out of the corner of my
eye.
Hark! Aunt Tabitha's call to dinner. I am glad of it. I was scribbling
_such_ nonsense, when I have so much to write better worth while.
_12 o'clock_. The night is beautiful, and it is a piece of self-denial
to close the shutter, light my lamp, and write in my journal. Peace of
mind came yesterday, positive happiness to-day, neither of which I can
analyze. I only know I have not been so thoroughly content since the
acquisition of my first jackknife; nor so proud since the day when I
first sported a shining beaver. I have conquered Etty's distrust; she
has actually promised me her friendship. I am rather surprised that I
am so enchanted at this triumph over a prejudice. I am hugely
delighted. Not because it is a triumph, however;--vanity has nothing
to do with it. It is a worthier feeling, one in which humility mingles
with a more cordial self-respect than I have hitherto been conscious
of. I can, and I will, deserve Etty's good opinion. She is an
uncompromising judge, but I will surprise her by going beyond what she
believes me capable of. I never had a sister; I shall adopt Etty, and
when I go home, we will write every week, if not every day.
But how came it all about? By what blessed sunbeams can the ice have
been softened, till now, as I hope, it is broken up for ever? People
under the same roof cannot long mistake each other, it seems, else
Etty and I should never have become friends.
As we left the door of Captain Black's house, and turned into the
field path to avoid the dust, Etty said, "I do not know whether you
care much about it, but you have given pleasure to these good old
people, who have but little variety in their daily routine, being
poor, and infirm, and lonely. It is really a duty to cheer them up, if
we can." I felt that it warmed my heart to have shared that duty with
her, and I said so. I thought she looked doubtful and surprised. It
was a good opening for egotism, and I improved it. I saw that she was
no uninterested listener, but all along rather suspicious and
incredulous, as if what I was claiming for myself was inconsistent
with her previous notions of my disposition. I believe I had made some
little impression Saturday night, but her old distrust had come back
by Sunday morning. Now she was again shaken.
At last, looking up with the air of one who has taken a mighty
resolve, she said, "I presume such a keen observer as yourself must
have noticed that the most reserved people are, on some occasions, the
most frank and direct. I am going to tell you that I feel some apology
due to you, if my first impressions of your character are really
incorrect. I am puzzled what to think."
"I am to suppose that your first impressions were not as favorable as
those of Mrs. Black, whom I heard remark that I was an amiable youth,
with an uncommonly pleasant smile."
"Just the opposite, in fact,--pardon me! To my eye, you had a mocking,
ironical cast of countenance. I felt sure at once you were the sort of
person I never could make a _friend_ of, and acquaintances I leave to
Flora, who wants to know every body. I thought the less I had to do
with you the better."
I felt hurt, and almost insulted. I had not been mistaken, then; she
had disliked me, and perhaps disliked me yet.
"It was not that I stood in fear of your satire," she continued; "I am
indifferent to ridicule or censure in general; no one but a _friend_
has power to wound me."
A flattering emphasis, truly! I felt my temper a little stirred by
Miss Etty's frankness. I was sulkily silent.
"_I_ had no claim to any forbearance, any consideration for
peculiarities of any sort. I am perfectly resigned to being the theme
of your wit in any circle, if you can find aught in _my_ country-bred
ways to amuse you."
Zounds! I must speak.
"My conduct to Flora must have confirmed the charming impression
produced by my unlucky phiz, I imagine. But don't bear malice against
me in _her_ behalf; you must have seen that she was perfectly able to
revenge herself."
Etty's light-hearted laugh rung out, and reminded me of my once
baffled curiosity when it reached my ear from Norah's domain. But
though this unsuppressed mirth of hers revealed the prettiest row of
teeth in the world, and made the whole face decidedly beautiful,
somehow or other it gave me no pleasure, but rather a feeling of
depression. My joining in it was pure pretence.
Presently the brightness faded, and I found myself gazing at the cold
countenance of Little Ugly again.
"No, I did not refer to Flora," said she. "As you say, she can avenge
her own quarrel, and we both were quite as ready to laugh at you, as
you could be to laugh at us, I assure you."
"No doubt of it," said I, with some pique.
"But what I cannot forgive you, cannot think of with any toleration,
is--"
"What?" cried I, astonished. "How have I offended?"
"A man of any right feeling at all could not make game of an aged
woman, his own relative, at the same time that he was receiving her
hearty and affectionate hospitality."
"Neither have I done so," cried I, in a towering passion. "You do me a
great wrong in accusing me of it. I would knock any man down who
should treat my aunt with any disrespect. And if I have sometimes
allowed Flora to do it unrebuked, you well know that she might once
have pulled my hair, or cuffed my ears, and I should have thought it a
becoming thing for a young lady to do. I have played the fool under
your eye, and submit that you should entertain no high opinion of my
wisdom. But you have no right to judge so unfavorably of my heart. If
I have spoken to my aunt with boyish petulance when she vexed me, at
least it was to her face, and regretted and atoned for to her
satisfaction. I am incapable of deceiving her, much less of ridiculing
her either behind her back or before her face. I respond to her love
for me with sincere gratitude, and the sister of my grandmother shall
never want any attention that an own grandson could render while I
live. I shall find it hard to forgive you this accusation, Miss Etty,"
I said, haughtily, and shut my mouth as if I would never speak to her
again.
She made no answer, but looked up into my face with one of those
wondrous smiles. It went as straight to my heart as a pistol bullet
could do, my high indignation proving no defence against it. I was
instantly vanquished, and as I heartily shook the hand she held out to
me, I was just able to refrain from pressing it to my lips, which, now
I think of it, would have been a most absurd thing for me to do. I
wonder what could have made me think of doing it!
_After Dinner_. I hear Flora's musical laugh in the mysterious
boudoir, and a low, congratulatory little murmur of good humor on
Etty's part. I believe she is afraid to laugh loud, lest I should hear
her do it, and rush to the spot. The door is ajar; I'll storm the
castle.
Flora admitted me with a shout of welcome, the instant I tapped. Etty
pushed a rocking-chair toward me, but said nothing. The little room
was almost lined with books. Drawings, paintings, shells, corals, and,
in the sunny window, plants, met my exploring gaze, but the great
basket was nowhere to be seen. It was got up for the nonce, I imagine.
Etty a rogue!
"This is the pleasantest nook in the house. It is a shame you have not
been let in before," said Flora, zealously. "You shall see Etty's
drawings." Neither of us opened the portfolio she seized, however, but
watched Etty's eyes. They were cast down with a diffident blush which
gave me pain; I was indeed an intruder. She gave us the permission we
waited for, however. There were many good copies of lessons: those I
did not dwell upon. But the sketches, spirited though imperfect, I
studied as if they had been those of an Allston. Etty was evidently in
a fidget at this preference of the smallest line of original talent
over the corrected performances which are like those of every body
else. I drew out a full-length figure done in black chalk on brown
paper. It chained Flora's wondering attention as quite new. It was a
young man with his chair tipped back; his feet rested on a table, with
a slipper perched on each toe. His hands were clasped upon the back of
his head. The face--really, I was angry at the diabolical expression
given it by eyes looking askance, and lips pressed into an arch by a
contemptuous smile. It was a corner of this very brown sheet that I
saw under her arm, when she vanished from the kitchen as I entered;
the vociferous mirth which attracted me was at my expense. Before
Flora could recognize my portrait, Little Ugly pounced upon it; it
fell in a crumpled lump into the bright little wood fire, and ceased
to exist.
"I had totally forgotten it," said she, with a blush which avenged my
wounded self-love. Ironical pleasure at having been the subject of her
pencil I could not indulge myself in expressing, as I did not care to
enlighten Little Handsome. Any lurking pique was banished when Etty
showed me, with a smile, the twilight view by the pond.
"Do you draw?" she asked; and Flora cried, "He makes caricatures of
his friends with pen and ink; let him deny it if he can!"
I was silent.
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