Chapter XII: Preface (12)

"Do not disturb yourself, Phœmie," said Cousin D.; "that particular boy has been swimming in one spot these ten years."

"And alive yet?" says I, feeling my eyes widen like saucers.

"Just as live as he ever was," says he.

"You don't say so," says I. "Can we see him from here?"

"Yes; yonder!"

Cousin D. pointed toward something in the water, black, with a red cap on. There did not seem to be much danger of his sinking, for he kept his head high, and a good many boats were near enough to keep him up. I lost sight of him, and watched the vessels flying off again. But somehow, when they came in sight once more, my enthusiasm was all gone, and I began to feel limp and dreadfully discouraged. I haven't had such an uproar about my--well--heart, since the Grand Duke sailed, and that was very different, a sort of affectionate flutter, while this is beyond ex-pres-sion.

Sisters, at the end of the last sentence, my head fell into one of those blue cushions, and I have a dreamy feeling that waves with white hats on were bowing to me right and left.

I have lifted my head again. The yachts are coming in full split. As each comes up, the steamboats and vessels give a yell that makes the sea tremble, and scares all the birds in the neighborhood. One time they shriek--that is for the _Gracie_. Then there was a deep, long howl--that was for the _Jantha_. Then there was a yell, a shriek, and a howl, all together, which was for the _Vixen_.

What yacht beat, I don't pretend to know, but it comes to me as if in a hideous dream that it was the _Vixen_.

The next thing I have on my mind was, a table set out in the cabin, and the popping of corks from long bottles, with a sound that made me quiver all over. Then I recollect that some one was persecuting me with offers of something nice to eat, for which I shall loath them as long as I live.

Sisters, I did _not_ see a single ocean wave thirty feet high--far from it--but those I did see were quite high enough. If you don't believe me, go to a yacht race, that's all.

LXXII.

MUSIC THAT IS MUSIC.

Dear sisters:--I love music. My soul was brought up on Old Hundred, and refreshed from time to time with Yankee Doodle. The lively tones of a fiddle drove me wild with delight, in my foolish, school-girl days; and I cannot keep my feet still when one rattles of money-musk or the Opera Reel even now, when enthusiasm is delicately toned down into graceful ease.

The truth is, Nature is full of music, and we who live in a mountainous country know how much of it is to be found outside of instruments and the human voice. In fact, the sweetest music I ever heard has come to me through the woods--not from the birds, but the whispering leaves. Have you ever listened--with your heart--and learned, by the faintest sound, the different voices of the trees--the quick, soft rustle of the maple; the stronger sound of the oak-leaves; the weird, ghostly shiver of the pine-needles? I know little of music, if anything out of heaven can touch a human soul more tenderly than these sounds. Then the birds--what joyous or solemn music they can make! Have you never felt your heart leap to the singing of a robin among the branches of an apple-tree in full blossom, or shiver and grow sad at sunset, when the cry of a lonely whip-poor-will comes wailing through the dusk?

There is the music of trees in the spring, when their blossoms are sweet and their leaves are just unfolding--soft, cheerful, happy music, full of tenderness and love. Then there is the low, drowsy music of the summer-time, when bumble-bees and lady-bugs and humming-birds fill the warm air with greedy droning as they plunder the wild flowers of honey.

Did you never close your eyes, half go to sleep, and listen to them, with a lazy consciousness that you could rest and enjoy, while those little, busy creatures were singing at their work? I have, a thousand times.

Then comes the fall, when the hills are burnt over with red and gold and brown. How the full, rough-edged leaves strike together, with a sound of copper and brass--with a rustle and shiver that makes one think of military funerals. Then comes the swift, rustling sound of ripe nuts rattling from burs and husks; the coarse, bass voices of the crows among the naked stubble-lots; the mellow crash of corn-stalks, as the cattle tread them; the slow, liquid grinding of cider-mills, and the sharp sound of the hackle, where flax is broken for the spinning-wheel.

After this, comes stormy music--fierce, high winds, whistling sharp and shrill through the long, naked branches of the woods, which answer them back with moans and sighs and wild shrieks that make you shiver at night and hide yourself under the bed-clothes.

When I was a little girl, sisters, my heart rose and fell to music like this till I suffered terribly, sometimes, without speaking a word to any one--for these are feelings which one never does talk of--there is no language that I ever learned which will express them. But I have never heard any music that could reach my soul like that which God gives us in the blossom season--the summer, the fall of late fruit--and the bleak, hard winter, when the clash of ice against ice has a sound that no man or woman can reach.

This is my idea of music, and that is scattered far and given to all men alike. You can't gather it up and deal it out in great, thundering gushes. It isn't to be got for five dollars a ticket. In fact, the best and sweetest things we have are given to the poor and rich just alike--free, gratis, for nothing.

LXXIII.

HUBBISHNESS.

Sisters:--The music I have just been writing about is not fashionable by any manner of means. Boston, the great central hub of all creation, can't bottle it up or engage it by the ton to astonish all creation with. She must have the manufactured article, and has sent all over the world to get it.

Every fiddler, flute-player, drummer, and curlecued horn-man in Europe has been brought over here to thunder-out and roll-off billows of sound for people to pay for and wonder at.

We have a Niagara of waters that astonishes the world. Now the people of Boston are determined to give us, in a great, wild, conglomeration of voices, a full Niagara of sound.

I am New England all over, from the top of my beehive-bonnet to the sole of my gaiter, but--confidentially, among ourselves--don't you think Boston takes a little too much on herself? That narrow-streeted, up-hilly city isn't all six of the New England States by a long shot.

My opinion is that Boston is putting on airs, and I for one don't mean to put up with it. I hate stuck-up people, and I despise stuck-up towns.

Of course it is my duty to see all things in behalf of the Society, and to do my best to lay them before you. I cannot say that my ideas of Boston have not toned down considerably since I came to New York. Still New England is New England, and Boston is Boston, if she does now and then make a tremendous old goose of herself, and sometimes threatens to cackle the hub all to pieces.

Cousin Dempster hasn't much to do in summer-time, so he was on hand for the Great High Jubilee; and E. E. was just crazy to go; for she is what you call musical, and goes right off the handle whenever a fellow that can't speak English plays on the piano or sings to her in some language that she don't know a word of.

Well, we went, and found Boston just running over with people. Every house along the crooked streets had one or two flags a-streaming from the roof, or out of the windows--star-spangled banners tangled-up with red and yellow and all sorts of colors; some with eagles, some without, but making every street gorgeous, as if the Fourth of July had burst out before its time.

The Coliseum is a tremendous building, big enough to roof-in forty thousand people, and leave room for the whole swarm of drummers, toot-horners, piano-thrashers, blacksmiths, anvils, and swivel-guns, with a thousand people to blow, thrash, and blast them off, and twenty thousand singers behind, ready to pile in the thunder of their voices.

The Coliseum is grand, barny in its structure, and all outdoorish when you get into it; but there is a good deal to see before you do get into it. The streets were just jammed-up with people when we came in sight of the great building, which stands out in a bare piece of ground, without a tree near it, and the hottest sun you ever wilted under beating down on everything around it, till I felt as if approaching the mouth of a great New England brisk oven, heated to bake a thousand tons of beans in. The streets were blocked with people.

The little wooden bridges built over the railroads were creaking under the tramp of a never-ending crowd. The street cars were crowded like beehives till the horses could not move, and some of the cars broke down, choking up the track.

Female women, with red books in their hands, scrambled through the crowd. Little tents and shanties were scattered all about, everybody talked fast and loud--some in one language, some in another. It was like going into the Tower of Babel, with all the languages in full blast.

From one of the shanties we heard the sound of a loud, eager, wild voice, as of some fellow going to be hung, and wrestling for his life.

"What is that?" says I to Dempster. "What on earth are they doing in there?"

"Oh, it's a prayer-meeting," says he; "some man is wrestling with the Lord in behalf of sinful souls."

"Oh, that's it," says I, just disgusted: "Well, I hope he'll get through with his wrestling before we come this way again. To haul religion and force prayers into such a crowd as this, is making a farce of Christianity. We have churches for such things, and the calm of a holy Sabbath set aside for the service of God. Who has time to think of such things here?"

"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child a-dragging after us.

We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.

LXXIV.

THUNDERS OF MUSIC.

Well, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.

It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of them--benches, benches, benches--crowded down and running over with people, all in a state of bewildering commotion--humming, whispering, and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.

You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of it, thousands and thousands with crimson books fluttering in their hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the singers--almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books in motion.

Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling, and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.

Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down, scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a grand sight, I must say that--grand, but hubby.

It was the German day, Cousin Dempster said. England had had her turn, France had flared up, and now Germany was to splurge just as much as she was a mind to.

Well, Germany did splurge, but she began with a loud, deep, woe-begone rush of music, that seemed to roll out from a graveyard where everybody lay uneasy in his grave and was begging to get out. This ended off when the day closed with a dreary, low complaint, as if they had begged long enough and gave up. Now and then they broke in with a grand crash that made me start from my seat, and went off in a low wail, with a storm of music between.

Something lively followed the first moan. Then a lady got up and sang all alone by herself, and her voice went floating through that great barny place, full, loud, and clear, as if ten thousand nightingales--not that I ever saw or heard a nightingale in my life, but I persist in it--as if ten thousand nightingales had broken loose in a swamp of wild roses.

"Who on earth is that?" says I to E. E.

"Madame Puschka Leutner," says she, clasping her hands. "Isn't she delicious?"

Then out E. E. drew her handkerchief and set it flying.

"I never heard anything like it, so strong, so sweet, so spreading," says I, flirting out my own handkerchief with enthusiasm. "The human voice is something worth while in the way of music after all."

It was no use saying more, for up jumped all the thousands of people in that great encampment, out went a swarm of white handkerchiefs, flocking together like a host of frightened seagulls, and the roar of the people went up like thunder.

Then a great band of men, mostly with yellow beards and rosy faces, got on their feet, and went at the fiddles, the twisted horns, the drums and things, like crazy creatures, and the way the music rose, and swelled, and thundered out was enough to drive one crazy.

Once more that great crowd burst in with yells and shouts, and a wild storm of praise. Then one of the yellow-haired men stood up alone with a wide-mouthed toot-horn, made of bright brass, in his hand. After looking around a minute, he just put the horn to his mouth, and blew a slow, long blow. Then he went at it tooth and nail, bringing out great round tones that seemed as if they never would grow faint or die away.

I have heard a great many toot-horns in my life; in fact, I have blown a tin one myself to call the men folks in to dinner; but never did I hear anything like that. It was what Cousin E. E. called wonderful--so-low.

I couldn't quite agree with her there, for to me it seemed wonderfully loud and riotous, but it was enough to make one in love with brass toot-horns forever.

By and by something happened that just took the starch out of my New England soul. There, in the midst of all those dashy singers, one hundred and fifty men and women of the colored persuasion rose up in a human thunder-cloud, and broke into that noble song of freedom, which is a glory to one New England woman, and a glory to New England, for no better thing has been written since the "Star Spangled Banner:"

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming Lord."

Oh, sisters! there mightn't have been the highest-priced music in those colored voices, but the words are enough to wake up a dead warrior; they went through and through me as the wind stirs a forest. It was something to hear those dusky-faced freedmen chanting the glory of their own emancipation--something better than music, I can tell you. But the thrill of the thing was all gone when twenty thousand white people, with drums, trumpets, fiddles, organs, everything and every creature that could make a noise, thundered in, and bore all the sentiment off in a wild whirlpool of thunder.

I do wish the white people would stop helping the colored population so much. They only drown them out and stifle them. Why couldn't the jubilant darkies be left to sing their own song, and rush on with old John Brown without being whirlpooled up in twenty thousand white voices. They could have stood their own without help, I reckon.

There was a little resting spell after the darkies sat down; then came a great heaving crash and storm of music. Everything from a jew's-harp to an organ was set a-going, and behind them thousands of women sent up their voices amid a crash of anvils, the thunder of guns, and the ringing of bells that plunged one headlong into a volcano of sound that was neither music, nor thunder, nor an earthquake, but altogether a stampede and whirlwind of noises that engulfed you, body and soul. Ring--crash-bang--thunder rolling, rolling--oceans in tumult--whirlwinds of sound--armies crashing together--the world at an end!

That was what it seemed like to me. Sisters, I haven't a nerve left in my body; my temples throb, my heart feels as if it had been blown up with brass horns. There is a drum beating in each temple. Oh, if I could only hear a robin sing, or a brook in full flow--anything soft, and low, and sweet--it would be a relief.

LXXV.

SARATOGA TRUNKS.

Dear sisters:--Do you know where Long Branch is? I reckon not, owing to its being a sandy slip, cut off from the edge of New Jersey, and not much of a place over two months in the year; it hasn't got into the geography books as a school item of importance, though, if a President or two more should settle in there, it might lift it a notch higher.

But in duty bound, I am here in pursuit of my great social mission, and can tell you, confidently, that Long Branch is a great watering-place, brim full, and running over with fashion once a year, when the hot sun drives all the upper-crust people out of New York, and everybody that is anybody feels the want of extra washing.

When I speak of watering-places, do not understand that I mean a tavern corner with some brook emptying itself into a huge wooden trough for horses to drink out of. Of course, that is our Vermont idea; with a willow-tree shading the trough. That, no doubt, gave the name here. But the two things are no more alike than trout streams are like the broad ocean.

I ask no questions, always finding it best to wait and watch, and learn for myself; but when Dempster asked me if I would like to go down to a watering-place in New Jersey, I asked him if there wasn't Croton Water enough in the pipes for all the horses they kept.

Dempster laughed, and said it was salt water he was thinking of, and asked, right on that, if I had got a bathing-dress?

"A bathing-dress," says I. "Goodness, gracious, no. When I bathe, as a general thing, I--that is--I take off--"

Here I broke off, and felt myself turning red. I declare, Cousin Dempster has a way of putting things upon you for explanation, which I, as a single lady, with expectations, of course, find embarrassing.

Just then, E. E. came in, all of a flurry about her trunks; she wanted more and must have 'em, she said. Seventeen Saratoga trunks, and a basket or two, were just nothing to what she needed. Dempster must go out and get half a dozen more. Why, her fluted skirts alone filled three trunks.

Dempster went. To own the truth, he is an obedient creature as ever wore coat and--well pocket-handkerchiefs. It wasn't long before a lot of trunks--big enough for country school-houses--were piled into the hall, and then Cousin E. E. began to revel. Her bed was crowded and loaded down with skirts, dresses, shawls, bonnets, round hats, broad flats, peaked caps. You never saw such heaps and mountains of clothes; such a litter of small things; such stacks of boots and shoes.

It really seemed as if she was fitting out an army of feminines. Even Cecilia was down on her knees packing, and E. E. was deep in a high trunk with her slippers half dropping from her feet as she punched things in and pressed them down. The help, black and white, kept running up and downstairs like hens with their necks wrung. Every few minutes there came a ring at the door, and paper-boxes and bundles were set down in the hall, and struggled upstairs when any of the help thought it worth while to bring them, which was once in about ten minutes, all morning.

I think Dempster made a cowardly attempt to get out of the way, but it was of no use. On such occasions men are wanted, especially when the bills come in, and E. E. knows her privileges.

LXXVI.

THE DOLLY VARDEN.

As I stood looking on, wondering if cousin really meant to turn the house inside out, and set up a village of trunks somewhere on the sea-shore, that hard-working creature lifted her face, and looked at me deploringly.

"Oh, Phœmie," says she; "are you packed? How cool you look."

"Packed," says I; "oh, yes; I always keep my pink silk folded."

"But your summer things, are they ready? Surely you'll have a Dolly?"

"No," says I; "its years since I have thought of a doll, and I haven't the least idea of going back to my play-house days."

"But I mean a dress," says she, lifting her head out of the trunk, and wiping the swe--well, perspiration from her face. "A Dolly Varden. Don't you understand?"

"A dress, and some Miss Dolly Varden, all at once! Now I can't think what dress you mean; and, as for that young person, I don't know her from a bag of sweet corn. How should I? Never having been introduced!" says I.

E. E. just sat back on the floor, and drew a deep breath.

"Oh, Phœmie," says she, "you are so stolid about some things. Why, it is only a dress I mean."

"Then what did you drag in that young person for?" says I.

"Because she gives her name to the dress."

"I'm sure the dress ought to be very much obliged to her. That is if she came by the name honestly," says I.

"And it's all the rage now. You must order one, Phœmie."

"What, the dress or the girl?" says I.

Cousin E. E. got out of patience, and sprung up red in the face. Across the room she went, slopping along in her slippers, flung back the lid of the trunk that seemed to be overrunning with poppies, marigolds, and morning-glories, and, giving something a jerk, brought up a puffy, short gown of white muslin, blazed all over with great straggling flowers--the morning-glories, poppies, marigolds that I had seen bursting up from the trunk.

"There is a Dolly," says she, a-shaking out the puffy, short dress, as if it had been a banner.

"Not by a long shot," says I, laughing. "It may be a whopping big doll's dress; in fact, it looks like it, for what woman on earth would ever think of wearing that? Why, the flowers would set her on fire."

"This is for Cecilia," says she, "but I have one just like it, and mean to wear it if you've no objection?"

"Not the least in the world," says I. "It isn't my mission to stop peacocks from strutting and showing their half-moons if they want to."

E. E. laughed. She is a good-hearted creature, and I set store by her after all.

"I will try this on," says she. "They are all the rage, I tell you. Try one, Phœmie; your tall figure would set one off splendidly."

"Do you really think so?" says I, beginning to take a notion to the great bunches of flowers which did stand out from the white ground with scrumptious richness.

"I am sure of it. No one carries off a dress so well," says she, "and it will be expected of you. Distinguished persons are so criticised, you know."

I looked at the dress again; the flowers were natural as life; the muslin was wavy, and white as drifted snow.

"But the cost?" says I. "A burnt child dreads a blisterous contamination. That pink dress of mine is a scrumptious garment--palatial, as one might say, but costly. The value of twenty-five yards of silk is a load for any tender conscience."

"Oh, a Dolly doesn't take half as much," says E. E.; "besides short skirts are the style on the sea-shore. The expense really isn't very enormous. In fact, almost any one can afford a Dolly."

I yielded. Human nature is weak, and I had a letter yesterday from uncle Ben, saying that the hay and corn crops are promising. Besides, there is a sort of reason just now why I should be a little self-liberal in the way of dress. As Cousin E. E. says, people do expect something better than alpaca and calico of high genius--especially when the form is tall, and the figure commensurate to the genius.

"But have I time? That French dressmaker will want three weeks, at least."

Cousin E. E. saw by this that the austerity of my economical education was giving way; so she jumped up, flipped the slippers from her feet, and was soon buttoning her boots and tying her bonnet, ready for a start.

"Where are you a-going?" says I.

"Where they'll take your measure and send the Dolly home to-morrow morning, or down by express. Leave it to me, and you shall have something really beautiful."

"Let there be plenty of flowers," says I.

"Of course," says she, "bright, rich colors."

"Hollyhocks," says I, "are my favorites; dandelions and feather-edged poppies come next; then a vine of trumpet flowers tangling the bunches together, would look scrumptious."

"I see you enter into the spirit of it," says she; "but have you got everything else?"

"Everything else? Of course I haven't. Who has, in fact? But my pink dress is turned wrong side out, and packed."

"Have you a flat?" says she.

"A flat! I? Not that I can call my own. Dempster has introduced half a dozen, but I don't claim them."

"Oh, I don't mean men, but a broad straw flat that answers for a bonnet and an umbrella."

"No," says I; "I have a Japanese thing that opens like a toad-stool, and shuts like a policeman's club. Will that do? That Japanese embassador gave it to me, with such a tender look. I never open it that his smile does not fall upon me like sunshine in a shady place."

"That will be distinguished; take it, by all means. But you will want the straw flat, and a bathing-dress as well."

"Now, Cousin E. E., says I, "what do you mean?"

"Why, you mean to bathe, of course?"

"Cousin E. E., have you ever seen a Vermont lady--not to say a woman of genius--who did not bathe?" says I, with dignity.

"But you will go into the water?"

"To a certain extent," says I, "that has always been my habit."

"But the ocean--salt water?"

"Well," says I, "salt water is beyond me; but if that is the fashion down at Long Branch, I don't object to a trifle of salt."

"The bathing is delightful," says she. "At the turn of every tide you see parties in the water all along the shore."

"Parties in the water--_parties_?"

"Ladies and gentlemen."

"What!!"

"Children, too."

"Ladies and gentlemen bathing together! Cousin, you--well, if I were telling a story like that to a congregation of born idiots, they might believe me--that's all."

"But it is true."

"And you call this a civilized country!" says I, blazing with indignation. "Emily Elizabeth Dempster, do you mean to say that men and women--gentlemen and ladies--go down to the salt water and bathe together?"

"Indeed they do."

"I don't believe it! I won't believe it! If my great-grandmother were to rise from her grave and swear to it, I would tell her to go back again and hide her face. Somebody has been imposing on you, Cousin E. E."

"Believe it or not, it is the truth," says E. E. "Ask Dempster."

"Ask Dempster! Do you think I have lost every grain of modesty, that such an outrageous question should pass my lips?"

"Well, believe it or not, as you like," says she, "I haven't time to prove it; only it isn't worth while to scout at what every one does, and you are a little apt to do that, Phœmie."

"So, if I lived among hottentots, I mustn't object to rancid-oil on my hair--but I think I should, anyhow."

"Well, well; get on your bonnet, or the Dolly Varden will never be finished in time," says she, laughing.

I put on my beehive, and we both went right down town. On our way we saw a wire woman standing in a broad, glass window, with a dress on, that took the shine off from anything I had ever seen in the way of a dress.

"There is a Dolly," says E. E., "and really, now, I do believe it would fit you."

We went into the store, had the wire woman undressed, and her Dolly carried up-stairs, where I put it on, behind a red curtain, with a chatty female woman hooking it together, and buttoning it up in puffs and waves that made me stand out like a race-horse with a saddle on. The girl was French, with a touch of the Irish brogue--just enough to give richness to the language.

I asked her what was the reason of it, and she said in their establishment a great many of the upper crust Irish came to trade, and she had caught just the least taste of a brogue in waiting on them--which was natural, and accounts for the accent so many of these French girls have, which I must own has puzzled me a little.

When my dress was on, E. E. and this French girl led me up to a great, tall looking-glass, and stood with their hands folded, while I took an observation. The French girl clasped her hands, and spoke first:

"Tra jolly," says she.

"No," says I, "that is not exactly my state of mind--composed I may be, but not jolly, by any manner of means."

"She means that the dress is beautiful," says E. E.

"Oh!" says I, "why didn't she say so then?"

"Well, she did, in her way."

"Magnifique," says the girl, cutting the word off with a squeak.

"Why can't you open your mouth wide enough to say magnificent," says I, "if you like it so much; nipping off words with a bite isn't one thing or another."

"Oh, but it is, beside the dress, that figure," says she, a-spreading her hands.

After all, the girl did manage to express herself. I was sorry for not understanding her at first.

Before I could say this, Cousin E. E. got out of patience.

"Does the dress suit? for we have no time to throw away," says she.

"Suit," says I, turning round and round with slow enjoyment of that queenly figure in the glass. "Of course it does. Why, cousin, it is superb; the bunching up is stupendous. Then the pattern--a whole flower garden in full bloom."

"Then it had better be sent home at once, for we must go early in the morning," says she, short as pie crust.

I paid for that Dolly Varden with satisfaction. It might have been dear--I think it was, but there were no extras, and I knew what I was about from the first. Besides it was a smashing affair, rain-bowish, beautifully puckered up, and blazing with flowers.

Well, we went into the street, and then Cousin E. E. began:

"One minute, Phœmie; I want some hair pins."

We went into the next door and got the hair pins, then out again. After walking about fifty feet she broke out once more:

"Dear me, I forgot the black ribbon."

In she darted through another door, and came out stuffing a bit of twisted paper into her pocket. Ten feet more and she turned square about:

"Some pins, Phœmie; I must get some pins."

So we kept darting in and out of doors till there wasn't another in the street, and went home with both our pockets stuffed full of pins, lace, gloves, combs, buttons, and a general assortment of other small things, all of which E. E. had forgotten till the last minute.

That night I left her plunged headforemost into a huge trunk, with a sloping roof, her feet just touching the ground, and complaining bitterly because Dempster was not at home to help press the things down.

LXXVII.

STARTING FOR LONG BRANCH.

Early the next morning a big wagon-load of trunks drove from the door. Then a carriage came up ready to take us to the boat. It was awful hot, and the air in that house was so close one could hardly breathe. The parlors were all shut up. The stone girl and that other fellow had white dresses on, and for once made a decent appearance. The chairs and sofas were all done up in linen, the blinds were shut, and the whole house looked like a church whose minister had been sent off on his travels at the expense of an adoring congregation.

E. E. and I stood in the hall, I with a satchel in my hand, she with a little brown affair buckled on one side of her waist.

That child was a-standing in the open door, watching the men pile the trunks on the wagon.

"Mamma," she called out, as the man drove away, "I'm sure they have left a trunk, for I counted, and there was only nineteen."

E. E. ran to the foot of the stairs.

"Dempster, Dempster!"

Down came Dempster, looking hot and worried.

E. E. called out:

"Do stop the wagon, something is left."

Dempster ran into the street, stopped the man, and stood in the hot sun counting over the trunks. His face was in a blaze when he came back.

"It's all right," says he, "twenty of them, full count. Come, get into the carriage."

E. E. moved forward a step or two, then halted.

"The basement door--is it bolted?"

Dempster dived down to the lower hall and up again, panting for breath.

"The scuttle," said E. E., pointing upwards.

Dempster rushed upstairs, banged away at the roof, and ran down again.

E. E. drew down her veil, and tightened her shawl.

"Oh, Dempster, have you locked the wine-cellar?"

Again Dempster made a rush into the depths of the earth, and came up again dripping with swe--well, perspiration.

"There, I think everything is safe now," he said, offering E. E. his arm.

She took it a moment, then dropped it suddenly.

"Dear me! Dempster, you haven't been near the stable, and I haven't a doubt it is wide open!"

Dempster said something between his teeth which I tried my best not to hear; then off he went down the pavement, looking as if he would give the world to knock some one down. By and by he came back, panting like a mad dog.

"Anything more!" says he, savage as a jack-knife, wiping his face with a white pocket-handkerchief.

"Yes, dear," says E. E.; "I'm afraid I left my parasol--just run up and see."

Dempster went, and came down with the parasol in his hand.

She took it, and got into the carriage. I followed, and "that child" dived in after me. Dempster had his foot on the step, when E. E. broke out again:

"Oh, darling, what shall I do?--Snip has been left behind. I think you will find her in the bath-room."

Dempster dashed the handkerchief across his face, ran up the steps in desperate haste, and by and by came out with E. E.'s little black dog in his arms.

E. E. reached out her arms, but Cecilia snatched it from her father. That moment a policeman went by, and E. E. leaned through the carriage window.

"Why, Dempster, you have forgotten to see the policeman."

Dempster followed the man, diving one hand down into his pocket. I saw him draw out some money, which the man took; then poor Dempster came back on a run, and plunged into the carriage.

"Drive on--drive on, I say--or we'll be too late for the Long Branch boat!"

The man did drive on, but E. E. jerked the check-string.

"Oh, husband, do oblige me just this once--I have left my longest back braid on the bureau!"

"No," says Dempster, "I'll be--"

I put my hand over Dempster's mouth.

"Dempster," says I, "if you ever want to be a Christian, this is the place to begin in, for here patience can have its perfect work."

My gentle rebuke had its effect. Dempster got out of the carriage, and once more mounted those stone steps.

By and by he came back with a long braid of hair trailing from his hand. Then he planted his foot on the carriage step with decision, and says he:

"Drive on!" which the man did.

LXXVIII.

THAT HAIR-TRUNK.

Dear sisters:--We are here at Long Branch, bag and baggage--Cousin Dempster, E. E., myself, and that creature Cecilia, who is more trouble than the whole of us put together. We came down in--not on--the _Plymouth Rock_, which is nothing of the sort, but a steamboat, as long as all out-doors, with room enough for a camping-ground for the next generation on the decks, and rows of staterooms that would line the main street of Sprucehill on both sides, and have some to let. There was a whole lot of fiddlers and horn-players on board that began to play the minute we came in sight--a compliment that I should feel more deeply if it hadn't become so common; but somehow wherever I go, those musical fellows start up, and grind and blow till one almost begins to wish for the privacy of an obscure position.

Fame is beautiful, and reputation is the glory of genius; but when they are sounded out by fiddles in broad daylight, and blasted over creation by wide-mouthed toot-horns, innate modesty shrinks within itself.

I really felt this way when a squad of music-grinders burst out in high jubilee the moment my foot touched the deck. It was a compliment, of course, but the sun was pouring down upon us, hot as a fiery furnace.

The express-men were smashing our twenty-two trunks on deck end foremost, caving one in every minute or two, and I felt too hot and anxious for reciprocity when the musicians struck up, for all the genius and ambition was just burned out of me.

When we got aboard, the thermometer was running up so fast that another hitch would have made it boil right over. Those glass things ought to be made longer at both ends.

I haven't a blinding faith in express-men since I saw three of E. E.'s best Saratoga trunks stove in, so I let the music storm on while I kept watch of my own hair-trunk, which came down from my grandmother on the father's side, who fed the calf that gave up the skin that covers that trunk only with its innocent life. She fed it with skim-milk from her own saucer, and set store by the trunk on that account up to the day of her death. Then she willed it to me in a codicil, that being more sacred than the original testament, she said, which I cannot understand--all testaments, old or new, being first in my estimation.

Well, of course, I kept watch of that trunk, and when I saw a great broad footed Irishman take it from the wagon and pitch it ten feet on deck, I just shut my parasol, clenched it in the middle, and went up to him.

"How dare you pitch my property on end in that way?" says I.

"I hain't touched none of your property," says he, a-wiping his forehead with the cuff of his coat. "Never see a bit of it."

"That trunk is my property," says I, pointing toward it with my parasol, which I still held belligerently by the middle.

"Well," says the fellow, eyeing the trunk sideways, "it does look sort of pecular, but still I reckon it's nothing more 'en a trunk, after all--one of the hairy old stagers--but only a trunk, anyhow!"

"Sir," says I, with emphatic dignity, for the honor of my ancestors was concerned, "that is a traditional trunk--a testamentary bequest from my grandmother--who was revolutionary in her time."

"What," says the man--"what is that you say?"

Here a real nice-looking gentleman came up to where I stood, and says he to the man:

"You should be more careful, the trunk is evidently an heirloom."

"You are very kind," says I, relenting into a bow; "it's only a hair-trunk--grandmother's loom went to another branch of the family."

"Well, anyway, I'll put the crather by itself, and bring it to yez safe, marum, never fear," says the Irishman; and with that he sat down on my blessed grandmother's trunk and wiped his face again. Then he waved his dirty hand and motioned that I should go away, which I did, and found E. E. spreading her skirts out wide on a settee, and looking as innocent as twenty lambs if any one seemed to turn anxiously toward the extra seat she was covering up for me.

I took the seat thankfully, spread my parasol, and tried to catch a mouthful of air, but there wasn't a breath stirring. The water in the harbor was smooth as a looking-glass. The sky was broad, blue, and so hot with sunshine that it blistered one's face to look up.

I put a blue veil around my beehive, and wilted down into my corner of the settee. Dempster stood by us blowing himself with a broad-brimmed hat, but not a breath of air he got.

"I'll run down and see how the thermometer is," says he. "Never--never did I swelter under such a stifler in my life."

Off he went, swinging his hat. In a few minutes he came back again, panting with the heat.

"It's a hundred," says he.

"What?" says I.

"The thermometer," says he.

"And is it that which makes things so hot?"

"Of course," says he, "one hundred is as much as we can bear."

"Then, why on earth don't they get rid of some? What is the use of piling-up things to this extent? For my part I never will travel on boats that carry these red-hot thermometers again. It's as much as one's life is worth. Nitro-glycerine is nothing to it; that blows you right straight up, but these other things pile on the heat and never come to an end."

Congress ought to put a stop to such dangerous freights being piled-up in steamboats. It's enough to breed suicides on the water.

Dempster wanted to laugh, I could see that, but his face just puckered up a little, and it was all he could do in that line. So he took a camp-stool, pulled his new white hat over his eyes, and fell into a soggy sort of sleep. There he sat, kind of simmering, like a baked apple in the mouth of an oven, till the steamboat stopped on the end of a sand-bank, and gave a lazy snarl, as if it was glad to get rid of us.

After this they packed the whole cargo of live people in a line of cars, and sent them off sweltering through the sand with the engine roaring before them like a fiery dragon.

LXXIX.

AT THE BRANCH.

By and by, we came to Long Branch, where the engine gave another long whoop, and were turned out into the sunshine again among stages, wagons, carriages, and all sorts of wheeled creatures, all looking as if they had been in a whirlwind of red dust.

Cousin Dempster had sent his carriage ahead, and there his handsome bay horses stood sweating themselves black, and dropping foam into the dusty road. We got in, helter-skelter--no one cared which was first--and were driven toward the sea-shore.

When we got in sight of the water the horses made a sudden turn, and wheeled into a wide, dusty street, that runs right along the edge of the water. It was an awful grand sight, but the waves didn't seem to have strength enough to move, only gave out a lazy sob once in a while, as if they were tired of carrying so many loafing ships about that hadn't spirit enough to flap their own sails.

Long Branch is a real nice place after all; and just the broadest, coolest, and most scrumptious tavern in it is the Ocean Hotel, which stands just back of the sea-shore, stretching its white wings widely, from the centre building a quarter of a mile, I do believe, each way. Before the house is a great green lawn, with walks and carriage roads cut through it that lead from the house to the high bank, against which the ocean keeps beating all the year round.

On each side the walks are great white marble flower-pots--vases they call them here--choke full and running over with flowers and vines, and great broad-leaved plants that looked cool and green, hot as it was.

"Oh," says Cousin E. E. "Isn't that beautiful? So fresh, so bright, it is like a moving garden."

So it was. All along those deep verandahs that run clear across the front of the hotel in double rows, were swinging baskets full of flowers and cool green leaves--hundreds of them--brightening the whole broad front of the hotel, and under them was a crowd of people--gentlemen, ladies, and children--reading, chatting, sleeping in the great easy willow chairs, or walking up and down on the soft grass.

Sisters, I know now exactly the way an Arab feels when he finds a bright spring--which they call an oasis--in the deserts of Sahara, and hears the leaves shiver and the waters murmur. This hotel looked cool, still, and refreshing like that. All the front was in shadow, before it lay the deep blue water. Inside was Mr. Leland, a potentate among hotel-keepers, ready to make us at home.

There it was again. Ovations will follow me. I had but just taken off my dusty clothes, bathed my face and hands with cold water, and stepped out on the verandah, when a storm of music burst out from a little summer-house on the grass. Wherever I go this sort of ovation follows me. Music and flowers seem to be my destiny. No matter where I roam, in all the steamboats and hotels they send storms of homage after me. Well, I am grateful, and I hope bear these honors with Christian meekness.

I have been riding all along the beach. The sun has gone down and the ocean ripples to the softest and blandest wind I ever felt. The vessels that move on it show signs of life now. Their great white sails bend and strain with a look of power. The day has been hot, but a cool wind comes off the water, and you breathe once more.

Sisters, do not be led to suppose that the Ocean Hotel, large and grand as it is, means all Long Branch. Why, there is a mile of hotels and cottages running along the beach, all swarming over with people. As you ride up the street you pass dozens and dozens of little summer-houses, full of young people looking out at the sea, which comes in with a slow rush and swell now that leaves a lonesome feeling in the heart.

LXXX.

THE RACE-COURSE.

There is a race-ground three miles from here, where everybody is going this morning, though the weather is hot and the ocean is sound asleep, with great silver scales of sunshine trembling over it.

New York has come down in crowds to Long Branch, and all the hotels have emptied themselves on to the race-course. Three miles of road are covered with moving carriages, wagons and stages--one cloud of yellow dust rolls along the road without a break. Every carriage is gay with brightly dressed ladies. Thousands go up or down on the railroad, whose engine stops and pours out clouds of black smoke close by the race track. From the cars a stream of people now on to the course, packing themselves into the benches of the Grand Stand, or scattering on the grass around it.

When we got into the enclosure fifteen thousand people were waiting, some in the hot sun, others in the hot shade, all choked with dust and sweltering with heat.

We were late. There was but one thing that we wanted to see: the race between Longfellow and Harry Bassett--two of the swiftest horses in the country.

If horses could gamble I should call these two beautiful creatures black-legs, and the gayest of gamboliers; but as they can't do it themselves men and women do it for them.

This time twenty-five thousand dollars was to go to the swiftest horse--twenty-five thousand dollars--enough to build a meeting-house. Doesn't it make you tremble in your shoes; but that isn't all. Everybody was betting with everybody else, just for the fun of betting.

I saw a little shaver there, ten years old, who boasted that he had won three pair of gloves from a little girl of eight.

The cream of that fifteen thousand skimmed itself off and consolidated in a handsome square building that they call the Club House. We went there, of course, and soon got seats among a crowd of upper-tenists on the roof, which took in a view of the whole race-ground.

One or two horses, with funny little fellows on their backs, were moving up and down before the Grand Stand, but no one seemed to care about them. Harry Bassett and Longfellow were all they wanted in the way of fast horses.

Sisters, don't fancy now that Longfellow is of a poetic, or even literary, turn of mind. Nor do I want you to think that his owner named him after our great New England poet because he was fired with admiration of his genius. Nothing of the kind. I don't suppose that "old Kentucky gentleman" ever read a line of Longfellow's poetry in his life--may be, though I hate to think so, he never heard of him--at any rate this great, long, swift, beautiful animal was named after himself, and nobody else. His body is long and slender, very long, and that is why the colt got his name. I wish it had been the other way, but it wasn't, and truth is truth. In fact, I'm afraid literature isn't appreciated on the race-course. It takes all the romance out of one to know that this grand young horse was named after his own body, and not after our great New Englander.

Never mind about the name now, Harry Bassett is coming down the road, and slackens his speed in front of the Grand Stand. A beautiful, beautiful animal, with limbs like a deer, and a coat smooth as satin, colored like a plump ripe chestnut. Fifteen thousand people clap their hands, stamp their feet, shout, cheer, and flutter out their handkerchiefs as the horse goes by.

Sisters, you never saw anything like it. A camp-meeting, where every man, woman, and child was just converted, might be a comparison, with drawbacks.

Harry Bassett took all this cool as a cucumber. It didn't disturb a hair on his glossy coat. The creature knew that he was being admired, and liked it--that was all. Down he came by the Grand Stand, past the Club House, where he got another ovation and another whirlwind of white handkerchiefs, and, wheeling round, walked back again and gave the other horse a chance.

Longfellow came next--a little larger, a little longer, and heavier in the limbs--a splendid horse; but he did not take my fancy as Harry Bassett did. From the first minute I wanted that chestnut beauty to beat; there was something about him, I can't tell what, but he suited me.

I was half put-out with Longfellow for being such a grand, powerful fellow. When he came opposite the Grand Stand, out flew the handkerchiefs and out rolled the thunder, just as it had when Bassett went by. Both the animals were so handsome that you couldn't help clapping your hands.