I have reflected somewhat since those days, and when a woman tells me now that she is suffering from nervous prostration I know that she is struggling with a disease--a mournful, painful, destructive actuality.
Emerson says, "when one is ill something the devil"s the matter." I know it is so with a woman, for all the peace and joy of life go out of her with sickness. I believe, too, that she would be subject to less nervous prostration if she had greater part in the more enlarging and enn.o.bling human activities. But as mother earth reinvigorated him who touched her, so what life we have comes from G.o.d, and indwelling with the Divine ought to renew us body and soul. Christ Himself may not have revealed the miracle of health to the apostles, but He taught them to use it. Mankind soon lost connection with the spiritual dynamo of revitalization--except most intermittingly. But has this been so through necessity or by reason of gross materialism? Among "the greater things than these" of the promise, may not highly spiritualized natures already be refinding the natural laws of healthful living through emphasizing the rightful dominance of man"s spiritual being? "All my fresh springs are in Thee!" "I will arise in newness of life" cannot refer to the soul without including the body, for the greater includes the less. The tendency to give less and less medicine; the declaration of the medical world that drugs are not curative; the healing of the body by the invisible forces of nature, as is being done every day--all these things electrify with the hope that the world is about to discover "the miracles in which we are nourished." The revelation of the 20th century may be how to pull out that "nail of pain"
which, according to Plato, fastens the mind to the body; and the joy of simple, harmonious existence may become a reasonable hope to suffering mortals.
After this experience of illness I made a trip through Canada and the East. With new vigor and the old interest I resumed my home duties and was preparing to enjoy our New Orleans carnival season, when one morning the housemaid announced: "Mis" Cal_line_, I do b"lieve Rex is come, fur dar"s er ole man at de do" wid er shabby umbril an" de _ole-es"_ han"bag--an" he say he"s you" cousin!" I hastened to meet him, and knew at once who it was; but the old man was in an exhausted condition. He said: "I have some brandy with me, and I need it. I have been very sick, but I thought I was well enough to come to see you once more before I die." I administered a stimulant to old cousin Jimmie, and in a cheerful strain he continued: "Oh, you"re so like your ma, cousin. She was an angel, and your worldly-minded old pa gave her lots of trouble, for your ma was pious, and she had a hard time to get him into the church. Cousin David was a fine man, too, and he had to give in at last to the blessed persuasion of cousin Betsey, your angel-mother."
The next day I observed cousin Jimmie was holding a wooden whistle in his hand, and blowing softly into it. I inquired what it was. "This whistle,"
he said, "is older than your old spinning-wheel and the ancient chiny in the corner cupboard." "But, I enquired, what is the use of it?" Cousin Jimmie replied: "They called up the crows with it, so they could shoot "em." "I always regarded crows as harmless creatures whose inky blackness of color was very useful as a comparison," I replied. "Well, you never knowed anything at all about crows," said cousin Jimmie. "I tell you, when a crow lights on a year o" corn, they eats every single grain before they stop; and I tell you they are suspicious critters, too--these crows! I used to thread a horsehair into a needle and stick it in a grain o" corn, and draw the hair through, and tie it, and throw it around, and they would pick it up and swallow the corn. Then I would stand off and watch the rascals scratchin" their beaks tryin" to get rid o" the hair, until they got so bothered they would quit that field and never come back. I was a little boy, them days." "Yes," said I, "and boys are so cruel." "Maybe so," said cousin Jimmie; "but I wa"n"t "lowed to have a gun to shoot "em--crows nor nuthin" else. Boys was boys them days, not undersized men struttin" "round with a cigyar in their mouths, too grand to lay holt of a plow handle. Why, some big boys, sixteen years old, can"t ketch a horse and saddle him, let alone put him to a buggy all right. I know that for a fact!"
"Do you like roast lamb and green peas, cousin Jimmie?--for that is what we have for dinner to-day; but I can order anything else you like better?"
"I"m not hard to please, cousin," he answered. "I like good fat mutton--and turnips; but cousin, them turnips must be biled good and _done_. _Done_ turnips never hurt n.o.body. Why, when I had the pneumony last winter I sent and got a bagful--and I had "em cooked all right; and way in the night, whilst I had a fever, I would retch out and get a turnip and eat it. Bile "em good and done and they can"t hurt n.o.body--_sick_ or well."
"I never heard of sick people eating turnips," said I.
"But you see I have, and has eat "em, and am here to tell you about "em."
"General Grant is nominated for President," said I, looking over the morning paper. "Grant, did you say? I"ll never vote for him! He wasn"t satisfied with $25,000 for salary, but wanted $50,000; and nex" time he"ll want a hundred thousand. Do you know, cousin," said the old man, "that them Yankees robbed me of one hundred and fifty n.i.g.g.e.rs? The government ought to pay me for "em. They had no more right to take them n.i.g.g.e.rs than they had to steal my horses and mules--which they stole at the same time.
I tell you, they must _pay_ me for my property!" and cousin Jimmie came down with a heavy blow of his walking cane on the rug. "Ef they don"t pay me they are the grandest set o" villyuns on top o" earth! When the blue-coated raskils was goin" up the Cheneyville road they met up with two runaways old Mr. Ironton had caught and hobbled with a chain. A Yankee said it was a shame for a human bein" to be treated so. Mrs. Ironton flung back at "em: "I don"t care! you may show them to the President himself, and hang them round his neck, if you like." The old woman was so sa.s.sy that the man simmered down. I heard another officer inquire very perlite, ef it was customary to sarve the n.i.g.g.e.rs this way, and I said we had to do something to keep "em down in their places; and, no matter how bad a n.i.g.g.e.r was, he was too valuable to kill, so we punished "em in other ways.
"To-morrow is my birthday," sighed cousin Jimmie, "and I"ll be eighty-eight years old." I celebrated the day for him and made him some presents; and I asked him to tell me bravely and truly whether or not he would be willing to live his life over, to acc.u.mulate all the money and estate he once possessed, to become a second time sick and old and dest.i.tute. Cousin Jimmie was silent a moment; then his aged eyes twinkled, and a smile spread over his still handsome old face: "I would try it over; life is mighty sweet; I"m not ready to give it up, cousin." "But you must before long relinquish all there is in this life." "Well," said he, "I"ve made pervision. I gave my niece Mary all my silver and my red satin furniture, and my brother has promised to bury me with my people in Mississippi. I"m all right there."
"I"ve heard, cousin Jimmie, that you denied the globular shape of the earth. How is that?"
"Why, I _know_ the earth is flat. "Tain"t fashionable to say so, but it don"t stand to reason that the world is round and flyin" in the air, like folks say. "Tain"t no sech thing--else eyes ain"t no account."
Two years more of this life, and then old cousin Jimmie--who was my father"s first cousin on his mother"s side--was able from some other planet, we hope, to investigate the shape of this one to which he had clung so loyally.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ENTER--AS AN EPISODE--MRS. COLUMBIANA PORTERFIELD.
There are characters of such marked and peculiar individuality that they loom upon one"s consciousness like Stonehenge, or any other magnificent ruin, as Charles Lamb says of Mrs. Conrady"s ugliness; and their discovery "is an era in one"s existence." In this way one of my intimate a.s.sociates, Mrs. Columbiana Porterfield, stands preeminent in my early and later recollections; but I was sorry to see into her. Every time we were together it impressed me more vividly than before, that self was the great center about which everything revolved for her. All her sympathies were related to that idol. No small human creature interested her large mind, except as connected with herself. She was devoted to her church, especially to its ministers, but it was a sanctuary where she worshiped self in the guise of G.o.dliness, and her own honor and glory was what she worked for in the name of the Master. At one time the sense of her colossal selfishness so ate into my spirit of charity that I tried to work it off by writing out, to one of my intimates, the following letters which embrace actual incidents and individual experiences through which are revealed Columbiana"s inordinate ambitions and desires for distinction--"her mark, her token; that by which she was known." Perhaps she may stand like a lighthouse to warn off other women from the same shoals.
NUMBER 1.
Miss Columbiana Porterfield was fat, fair, and almost forty years old when she became a winter visitor at Colonel Johnson"s plantation home in the far South. She was so much respected and admired by the Colonel that when his wife died he urgently invited her to fill the void in his heart and home.
The position seemed advantageous, and the lady accepted the situation, entering confidently upon the duties involved, resolving to adapt herself to her surroundings when she could not bend circ.u.mstances to her own strong will. She was a sensible woman, and her good husband loved her with a doting, foolish fondness which he had never exhibited to the departed wife of his youth.
The family servants did not hesitate in giving her the allegiance due to power and place, and they were careful to pay all deference to the new mistress; therefore Mrs. Johnson was surprised to overhear the housewoman saying to the cook: "I tell yer dat ar white "oman from de Norf ain"t got dem keen eyes in dat big head o" hern for nuthin"; I"m afeered of her, I is dat." The lady was wisely deaf to these remarks, but they rankled in her mind several days.
One of the neighbors thought Mrs. Johnson was not a good housekeeper, because she had apple fritters for dinner, when there was ample time to make floating-island and even Charlotte Russe before that meal was served.
Yet with all this talk it was easy to see that the newly-adopted head of the household had completely identified herself with her family.
There are Americans who go to Europe, and after a short stay no longer regard the United States as a fit dwelling-place for civilized beings; who indulge themselves in the abuse of scenery, climate, customs and government of their own native land as freely as any hostile-minded foreigner. Therefore it is not strange that Northerners who come to live in the South should become attached to their surroundings, and even prefer them to all others which they ever knew.
Mrs. Johnson loved her stepchildren, Harry and Lucy. She taught them to call her "aunt," but their own mother could not have been more devoted to the children of the father who had lain down and died amidst the great conflict which was a horror to the whole country. Mrs. Johnson was greatly agitated by the war and its results, and as soon as possible after this cruel strife was over, she took Lucy with her on a visit to her Northern home, leaving Harry behind. Among the first letters sent back was the following, dated October 15th, 1867:
MY DEAREST HARRY,--My sister was rejoiced to see me alive once more; but I feel like a stranger, for when I look at your sister I cannot realize that she is here where she does not belong. It is a visible contrast of two extremes, my family representing one, and Lucy, the other. The North and South will breakfast together to-morrow morning on buckwheat cakes and codfish b.a.l.l.s. Everybody loves your little rebel sister. Even the girl in the kitchen dotes on her, and looks lovingly on the dear girl while she is demolishing the dainty dishes she has compounded for her delectation. I don"t mean fish-b.a.l.l.s, for she hates them.
I know she thinks Lucy is an angel, while I suspect I am thought to be exactly the reverse, judging by the disagreeable, reluctant way she has of serving me. A woman who had been teaching the freedmen down in South Carolina came here last week to collect money for them. Everybody went to hear her speak, and Lucy just went along with the rest. It was a highly improper thing for a Southern girl to do. I knew it, but could not put my veto on it and make myself odious to the family, so I held my peace and let her go, though I should have been ashamed to be seen in such a place.
She told me all about it, however, and you have a right to be proud of your n.o.ble sister. She conquered her nerves and sat perched on a front seat and listened with great attention, and almost repeated the whole thing for me when she came home.
The woman dilated eloquently upon the awful sin of caste prejudice existing among the abominable South Carolina aristocrats, who, while they would accost and speak to the colored pupils, were so stuck up that they regarded the white teachers as no better than the dirt under their feet.
After the speech was over, they took up a collection, and when my sister told me she saw Lucy put in five dollars, I was just too provoked to say a word. To do this foolish thing after all our losses was too much--when she has ordered a new pelisse from New York, too! I could scarcely sleep for thinking of this folly. The cold weather gives me a despondency anyhow. It makes me think of my own home in the South, with all its comforts and the beautiful wood fires, now mine no longer. True, the house is mine, the dear Colonel gave me that, and the land, and the stock. There is the old family carriage and the horses; but it is bitter as wormwood and gall to have no one here to drive me out or do the smallest thing for me unless I pay out money which I no longer possess. It was a wicked thing to ruin and break up our homes like this, but, my dear boy, we must try to be content with what G.o.d sends. Our portion is not money, but water; an overflow of it in the river, and too many caterpillars in the cotton fields eating up our crops. You must be prepared to suffer poverty and affliction without slaves to polish your boots and rub down your horses.
You may even be obliged to chop kindling for me to cook with, before you are done.
The old purposes, habits and customs cannot be carried out any longer. You must not think of matrimony. You ought now to wait until you are thirty years old before you attempt to make a shipwreck of your life by marriage.
But I do know a perfect Hebe who would suit you exactly. She comes here often. Oh! she is a dainty warbler, not quite full-fledged, but superior, n.o.ble, magnificent in design, able to soar higher than any of those finiky, twittering little canaries you love to play with. A splendid ancestry, too, as ever lived, solid, wealthy men, though some of them are deteriorated by having married wives who were n.o.body. Some women dwarf men"s souls by their own littleness. I hope you will not fall a victim to any such.
You must keep up the family prestige; your talents and a.s.sociations demand a foremost place, and you must refuse to commonize yourself with that low, ignorant, profane, dram-drinking set of young men around you. I do heartily despise them all, and have never received them in my house when I could help it. They would gladly drag you down to their own level if they could.
How these good New Englanders rejoice in the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves!
All my friends and relations chuckle over it, so that it looks to me like malice triumphant. Lucy came out last Sunday in a beautiful new hat and pelisse from New York, looking like the daughter of a d.u.c.h.ess; and old cousin Althea said that she did not look that day as much like ruin as she had expected when she saw me and Lucy getting out of the carriage in our shabby old war clothes. That old thing is perfectly hateful and always was.
If our old servants are still with you, say "howdie" to them for me. I hope Chloe has not run off with her freedom anywhere. She does make such nice waffles and French rolls. You must contrive some way to keep Chloe if I am expected to spend much time with you.
Your loving aunt, COLUMBIANA.
NUMBER 2.
MY DEAR HARRY,--Lucy has a beau. She denies the fact, but there is a gentleman here from New York who is an intimate friend of my brother, and he looks at your sister and watches her so eagerly, and does so many things to please her and to promote my comfort, that I am dead sure it is an elaborate case of love. I do not think him a suitable match for Lucy in every respect, but he is very useful to accompany us on excursions and he manages a pair of horses admirably, and it is convenient to have such a man around. We went to cousin Sabina Suns" yesterday, where we were all invited to dine and to meet the Bishop and Prof. Elliott. I made occasion to pa.s.s through the dining-room. Heaps of red currants in lovely cut-gla.s.s bowls, golden cream in abundance, white mountain cake and luscious peaches were set out for dessert, instead of the everlasting doughnuts and perpetual pie which you see everywhere. Not that I care for dessert. I knew we should have oyster soup and a pair of roasted fowls and all accompaniments of a regular dinner, for Sabina Suns" girl is the best cook I have found anywhere.
We were all sitting in the west drawing-room, and the Bishop had not yet arrived, when somehow we got upon the subject of the late unpleasantness, and Sabina Suns blurted out that Jefferson Davis was a traitor, and ought to be hanged. Tears came to Lucy"s eyes and the blood mounted to her temples. She suddenly disappeared. I saw the fire in the child"s eyes and felt the bitterness in her heart, though I said nothing to her, but I begged Sabina to spare our feelings, for I saw she had gone too far. In a few moments Lucy appeared with her hat and gloves and bade cousin Sabina Suns good-by, and went away before our astonishment had subsided.
I wanted Lucy to meet the Bishop and the young college professor of entomology. I had been telling her what a fine young man he was, of such a wealthy family, and it now became her to be on the lookout for some better establishment than any poor Southerner could offer. She is young and pays little attention to what I say. Sabina was rude and unkind, but the Bishop and Professor were coming, and then there was the dinner, so I remained and really had a splendid time, except for this unpleasant episode.
I intended to scold Lucy, but when I reached my sister"s house I found it was no use. Lucy"s fiery indignation would brook no reproof. She opened the flood-gates of her wrath upon Sabina without mercy. She said the woman had elevated one of her enormous feet upon the other as though such cruel language must inevitably be accompanied by some vulgar action, and her two feet so elevated seemed high enough for a common gallows post. To be candid, I was almost scared to death to see your sister so angry and spiteful. But I like a woman of spirit; it is not best, however, to run off on a tangent in the face of good company and a first-cla.s.s dinner. My dear Harry, I think you are better trained, and would have shown more common sense under the same circ.u.mstances.
The Hightowers, who have so often entertained me in New York, want their son Howard to come to the mountains or go somewhere to rest after he is graduated, and I have invited him to come up here as a sort of return hospitality for a long visit I made with them. The New York _beau_ is soon to leave. I could not understand that Lucy promoted his departure in any way, but I thought Howard would be useful. Not that I think he would be a more desirable _parti_ than the other, but it is handy to have a young fellow around to wait upon us or take us to different places. He will come next week, but I shall not apprise my sister, who might object at the last moment, though I am sure she will treat him well, as she does all my friends.
Lucy dressed herself with great elegance this evening. I did not think it was worth while to be wasting her best dry goods and her dear self on the people she was going to visit; and as I sat in her dressing-room and saw her laced up in her new lavender silk, which is supremely becoming to her lovely complexion, and then pin on a rich Brussels lace collar, I could not help reproving her by reminding her of her long deceased elder sister, who, I said, doubtless was looking down from heaven in sorrow and disapprobation of such vanities. "Oh, Aunt Columbia!" said she, "Nanny Jones was right when she said you had such a terrible way of throwing up a girl"s dead kinfolks to her; please don"t make me cry; I don"t want to go to the party with red eyes." Henry, that Jones girl ought never to have been invited to your uncle Joseph"s house. She was an incorrigible piece, and was a great trial to me that month she spent with me.
I do hope you go regularly to church. It looks beautiful to see a high-bred young gentleman sitting in his father"s pew. The desecration of the Sabbath in our Southern country is perfectly awful. I never could bear to see it. You know your uncle Joe, Christian as he proposes to be, will say to his wife: "Julia, if you must have a cold dinner once a week, get it in on a week day; on Sunday I must have something better than usual, and it must be fresh and hot." I frequently stopped there after church and dined with him, so I was well aware of this bad example, right in our own family, as it were.
One would think, after fighting through such a long, b.l.o.o.d.y war, that our young men would have done with all private killing and murdering, and would settle down at home and be industrious and peaceful; so I was all the more shocked to hear that young Joe McDonald had shot and killed Billy Whitfield, and all about a trifling little Texas pony. Joe actually had the impertinence to write to Lucy explaining that he only acted in self-defense, and begging her not to refuse to speak to him when she returned. She shall never answer his letter or look at him again with my consent. I tremble for you, my dear boy, subject as you are to such dreadful a.s.sociations, and I pray that you may be kept in safety from every evil-influence.
Make Chloe look after the poultry. If she sets some hens now, they (the chickens) will be ready for broiling by Christmas. You know how fond I am of young chickens for supper. I have eaten enough cold bread up here to last a lifetime. It may be good for dyspeptics, but I am not one.
Your loving aunt, COLUMBIANA.
NUMBER 3.