XXIX.
MR. GREELEY"S BIRTHDAY PARTY.
The parlors were large and light, and crowded full. Just beyond the door I saw a man standing, with both hands at work, shaking out welcomes to his friends, as a chestnut bough rattles down nuts after a rousing frost.
There he stood--the honored son of our dear old State--looking benign as Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and sweet-tempered as if he had fed on native maple-sugar all his life. I looked eagerly for his "old white coat," but he had on a bran-new black one; his hair, long and snow-white, fell down almost to his shoulders, that were rather broad than otherwise, which is needful considering the burdens that have been piled on them. I really think any stranger, going in there, would have known that this man owned a birthday by his face, it was so radiant with good-nature.
By and by we hustled our way to the door. A man that stood there whispered something to Cousin Dempster, who whispered back. Then the man sung out--
"Mr. and Mrs. Dempster--Miss Phmie Frost!"
Mercy on me, wasn"t there a fluttering when that name rang through the crowd, as if blown by the trumpet of Fame. I felt myself blushing from head to foot, my heart rose into my mouth. I clung with feminine reliance on my cousin"s arm, and, thus supported, prepared to endure the hundreds of admiring eyes bent upon me.
Mr. Greeley came forward. The moment he heard that name he seized the two whitely gloved hands that I held out to him.
"Miss Frost, of Vermont," says he.
I pressed his hands. I could not speak. A little address, full of poetry, that I had been thinking over in my mind, melted into chaos. I could only murmur something about birthdays and long lives. Then some new people crowded me away, and I felt myself alone long enough to take a look at the rooms. They were gorgeous with pictures and flowers; radiant with gas, which fell like August sunshine through a thicket of vines, and flowers woven in among the burners in the chandelier, and dropping down half way to the floor.
The marble slabs under the looking-gla.s.s at each end of the rooms were matted over with flowers, and from the top streamed down long feathery vines which ended in little bunches of red roses that swung loose before the gla.s.s, and left another vine there. Over the doors and windows these vines and flowers trailed themselves everywhere. Some beautiful pictures were on the walls. The centre one was of Greeley himself--just like him--bland and serene, smiling down upon the crowd as if he longed to shake hands over again.
This picture was just crowned with a mat of white flowers, in which the year our Greeley was born, and the present year, were woven with bright red flowers. Down each side the feathery vines trailed and quivered. I tell you, sisters, it was beautiful.
Before I could take in a full view, people had found out where I stood, and came crowding round me so close that I had to take in a reef of my pink silk dress, and they kept Cousin Dempster busy as a bee introducing them. So many people had read my writings, so many people had been dying to see me, it was enough to bring blushes to my cheeks and tears to my eyes. This, said I, is fame--and all Vermont shall hear of it, not for my sake, but in behalf of the Society.
The rooms had been full of music all the time, but now the toot horns and fiddles stopped, and I heard the tones of a pianoforte from the further end of the room, then a voice struck in--loud, clear, ringing.
We pressed forward, people made way for us, and we got into the ring.
A young lady was standing by the pianoforte, singing "Auld Lang Syne."
Greeley stood by her, holding her bouquet in his hand. How smiling, how satisfied he looked as the heart-stirring old song rang over him! Close by stood his only sister, Mrs. Cleveland, a fair and real handsome woman, dressed in blue silk, with a white lace shawl a-shimmering over it. She looked happy as a blue jay on an apple-tree bough, and made everybody welcome over again when Mr. Greeley had done it once--just as a kind, warm-hearted woman ought to stand by a brother she is proud of, and looks like.
Near by were her two daughters, just the nicest girls you ever saw. One of "em in a pink satin dress with lace over it, and the other in blue satin with lace--just lovely!
When the lady who did "Auld Lang Syne" went away from the pianoforte, every lady in the room began to clap hands, they seemed to be so glad that Mr. Greeley had found time to have a birthday. Then Miss Cleveland, in the blue dress, sat down, looking sweet and modest as a white dove; and she sang, too, real sweet; and then the people began to clap hands again. It seemed as if music just set them off into tantrums of delight because our great white-headed Vermonter had ever been born.
I joined in with a vim; for if there is anybody I like and am proud of, it is the man who was standing there smiling among his friends, with that great, lovely bunch of flowers in his hands, and a little one in the b.u.t.ton-hole of his coat.
The wife and two daughters of our statesman and friend were over in England, so that his family connections didn"t spread as if he had been President of the United States. But then he had a great many honest friends, and that made up for it considerably. There stood Mr. and Mrs.
A. J. Johnson, who had carpeted their stone steps, set up a tent over their hospitable door, and turned their parlors into a blooming garden, just to show the respect they had for him; and they did it beautifully, making his friends theirs. At any rate, I can answer for one; for any person who does honor to a Vermont man who has glorified his State, can count on the faithful friendship of Phmie Frost during his natural life.
At eleven o"clock, exactly, we all crowded around Mr. Greeley, and shook hands with him over again. Then we shook hands with Mrs. Johnson, who looked sweet, and was nice as nice could be; and with Mr. Johnson, and so on. After that, we all flocked out, with cloaks and hoods on, feeling that an evening like that was a refreshing season which will not be forgotten by some of us, so long as we live.
One thing I forgot to mention--and I do it now, with tears in my eyes.
In the front parlor, on a line with Mr. Greeley"s picture, was one that made the heart ache in my bosom, and which will bring tears into your eyes, one and all, I know. It was the picture of Alice Cary. You have read her poetry; you know how good she was from that poetry; but I have learned some things about her here, that, as a Society, you should hear about. But I respect her memory so much that it must be in a report by itself. She was a great friend of Mr. Greeley"s, and her shadow seemed to smile on him as it hung upon the wall.
x.x.x.
LEAP YEAR.
Do you know that this is Leap Year? Do you begin to feel the glorious flood of liberty which it lets in upon the female women of this country?
As a society and as individuals, let us press forward to the mark of the prize--I beg pardon.
This is not exactly a religious subject, though it does relate to the hymeneal altar, at which we have never yet been permitted to worship--a lasting and burning shame, which I, for one, begin to feel more deeply every day of my life.
True, my own prospects are brightening and glorifying, but circ.u.mstances have brought them, for the present, to a dead halt. But for the burst of golden sunshine let into my sad destiny by this opening Leap Year, I should be growing pale with suspense--for you know the great Grand Duke, though courteous and devotional, did not speak out in a perfectly satisfactory manner. I knew he meant it; for no robin"s nest in laying time was ever so full of warm and brooding love as those blue eyes of his. But a cruel fate took him hence before the thrilling word was spoken, and left me trembling with doubt, pining in loneliness.
I know the reason of this now; there is not a doubt that he has been anxious, like myself, but imperial royalty has its impediments. My Prince must bow to the exactions of a lofty station. I took up a paper the other day, and read something that made the heart leap in my bosom as a trout jumps after a fly. The Emperor has heard of the great Grand Duke"s admiration. All Russia has heard of it and me. It is even reported that he has married a lovely and talented female, without waiting for the Emperor to say yes or no. The description answers, you will perceive. I felt myself blush, like a rose in the sunset, when I read it. "Lovely and talented." Sisters, there can be no doubt about it!
I felt my cheeks burn and my heart broaden with a sense of coming exaltation. Why should the Emperor refuse? Are we not all queens in this country, and is not a woman of genius an empress among queens?
I"m afraid the Emperor of all the Russias does not yet comprehend the great social system of our country, where the fact of being a woman has infinite n.o.bility in itself--to which peculiar privileges are attached; for instance, the privilege of carrying pistols and shooting down men in hallways and street cars in a promiscuous fashion.
As I have said--to be a woman in America is to be everything. That is why I think it unreasonable that Imperial n.o.bility should be forbidden to match itself here. Once we had aristocracy of money, but since the war, when people became rich in no time by selling shoddy and things, that has levelled down like a sand heap. But one aristocracy is left now, and that is the aristocracy of mind. Genius is the n.o.bility of the mind. Now as long as the Prince unites himself with that, what has any one, even his august father, to say against it?
But there is no doubt I have given the Imperial heart some anxiety.
_His_ manner was so impressive; his spy-gla.s.s was levelled at my countenance so often, that it is not to be wondered at if the violence of his pa.s.sionate admiration did get about and fly on the wings of the wind to his Imperial home. There it was sure to make an excitement.
American ladies have married lords and marquises in England, counts and princes in other countries, and make first-rate lordesses and marchionesses and princesses too. In fact, just as good as the born n.o.bility, and better too; but up to this time it is left to a lovely woman of genius to exalt America into the region of imperial highness.
Money--for your lords, etc., etc., etc., generally want that with American beauty and grace--money has done its utmost. Now genius comes in, and modesty crowns itself.
I am satisfied that the great Grand Duke is only waiting, from a feeling of doubt and modesty. My heart compa.s.sionates him. Up to the first of January, I could do no more. Female propriety forbade it, but now--now all is changed. Modesty is disenthralled.
It is Leap Year. St. Valentine"s Day approaches. The windows of every book-store are a-blazing with valentines, burning with love, eloquent of the tender pa.s.sions, pictorial and poetical.
The Queen of England offered herself to Prince Albert. It must have been a touching scene. How modestly she suggested the flame that was kindled in her youthful heart, and still lies smouldering in the ashes of that good man"s grave. I don"t think she waited for Leap Year--but I will. No one shall say that Phmie Frost has forgotten what is due to her s.e.x.
St. Valentine"s Day emanc.i.p.ates the womanly heart. I have bought a valentine, white satin, surrounded by a frost work of silver lace, sprinkled with gold stars. On the satin is a little boy with wings, hiding behind a rose-bush, firing arrows through it from a bow which he lifts up roguishly. These arrows are aimed at an Imperial figure mounted on a wild horse, and running down a buffalo--a unique and beautifully suggestive idea. This was the poem which gushed with spontaneosity from my disenthralled mind:
Come back, come back, from the buffalo raid!
Here is fairer game for you; At thy feet the lovingest heart is laid That ever a Grand Duke knew.
A lady rich in womanly pride, Whose soul clings unto thine, Is ready to be an Imperial bride-- Kneel with thee at Hymen"s shrine.
Come back, come back, or thy haughty sire Will command, and all is lost; But he cannot extinguish this holy fire In the bosom of----
Sisters, I ask you now, isn"t this a gem? It isn"t just the thing to put your name to a valentine, they tell me, but this is something deeper and more poetic than such things usually are. It means mischief, as Cousin Dempster says. It is a proposal, buried in roses and veiled in sweet and modest verse, such as a lady might almost send at any time with a few blushes. It will reach him out in that vast wilderness of dead gra.s.s, where he has been deluded off by Mr. Sheridan, and has risked his precious life in a terrific manner, shooting great, monstrous buffaloes, which are animals, they tell me, something like an overgrown ox, only the hair is longer, and they are kind of hunched-up about the upper end of the back, just as if the last city fashions among ladies had got to be the rage out there.
Imagine my feelings, sisters, when I heard that the Grand Duke was off with that fellow and a squad of wild Indians, all in war-paint and tomahawks, hunting these terrific creatures. It almost made me feel like a widow. There he was, brought up so tenderly, eating broiled buffalo hump, and drinking champagne and things out in the open lots, as big as all out-doors, and sleeping in a tent. Think of it! With his own right hand he shot down twenty-five of these humpbacked monsters, and means to carry their skins home with him to Russia. I suppose Mr. Philip Sheridan will be for studying the military tactics of Russia from St. Petersburg to Siberia as soon as the great Grand Duke gets back, for he isn"t the sort of fellow, folks tell me, to give up a chance like that. Governor Palmer, of Illinois, has, at any rate, given him leave of absence from the Chicago fires, and there isn"t anything much to keep him from hunting in Siberia if he wants to.
Well, I got my valentine all ready; directed it to the Grand Duke in a delicate, ladylike way, and took it with my own hands down to the post-office.
"Be very careful of this," says I to a young man who stood at the post-office window, "and see that it goes straight to his Royal Highness; I want it to reach him the first thing in the morning on Valentine"s Day."
He looked at the address, and muttered to himself:
"For His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of all the Russias: care of Philip Sheridan and a wild Indian whose name a refined lady could not bring herself to p.r.o.nounce; Buffalo Plains, America."