Chapter XII: Part XII (1)

I saw a poor old bachelor live all the days of his life in sight of paradise, too cowardly to put his arm around it and press it to his bosom. He shaved and primped and resolved to marry every day in the year for forty years. But when the hour for love’s duel arrived, when he stood trembling in the presence of rosy cheeks and glancing eyes, and beauty shook her curls and gave the challenge, his courage always oozed away, and he fled ingloriously from the field of honor.

Far happier than the bachelor is old Uncle Rastus in his cabin, when he holds Aunt Dinah’s hand in his and asks: “Who’s sweet?” And Dinah drops her head over on his shoulder and answers, “Bofe uv us.”

A thousand times happier is the frisky old widower with his pink bald head, his wrinkles and his rheumatism, who

Wires in and wires out,
And leaves the ladies all in doubt.
As to what is his age and what he is worth,
And whether or not he owns the earth.

He “toils not, neither does he spin,” yet Solomon in all his glory was not more popular with the ladies. He is as light-hearted as “Mary’s little lamb.” He is acquainted with every hog path in the matrimonial paradise and knows all the nearest cuts to the _sanctum sanctorum_ of woman’s heart. But his jealousy is as cruel as the grave. Woe unto the bachelor who dares to cross his path!

An old bachelor in my native mountains once rose in church to give his experience, in the presence of his old rival, who was a widower, and with whom he was at dagger’s points in the race to win the affections of one of the sisters in Zion. Thus the pious old bachelor spake: “Brethren, this is a beautiful world. I love to live in it just as well to-day as I ever did in my life. And the saddest thought that ever crossed this old brain of mine is, that in a few short days at best, these old eyes will be glazed in death and I’ll never get to see my loved ones in this world any more.” And his old rival shouted from the amen corner:

“Thank God!”

* * * * *

Oliver Wendell Holmes says:

“Our brains are seventy year clocks. The angel of life winds them up once for all, closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the resurrection angel.” When I read this I thought, what a stupendous task awaits the angel of the resurrection, when all the countless millions of old rickety, rusty, worm-eaten clocks are to be resurrected, and wiped, and dusted, and repaired, for mansions in the skies! There will be every kind and character of clock and clockwork resurrected on that day. There will be the Catholic clock with his beads, and the Episcopalian clock with his ritual. There will be an old clock resurrected on that day wearing a broadcloth coat buttoned up to the throat; and when he is wound up he will go off with a whizz and a bang. He will get up out of the dust shouting, “Hallelujah!” and he will proclaim “_sanctification!_” and “_falling from grace!_” as the only true doctrine by which men shall go sweeping through the pearly gates into the new Jerusalem. And he will be recognized as a Methodist preacher, a little noisy, a little clogged with chicken feathers, but ripe for the Kingdom of Heaven.

There will be another old clock resurrected on that day, dressed like the former, but a little stiffer and straighter in the back, and armed with a pair of gold spectacles and a manuscript. When he is wound up he will break out in a cold sepulchral tone with, firstly: “_foreordination!_” secondly: “_predestination!_” and, thirdly: “_the final perseverance of the saints!_” He will be recognized as a Presbyterian preacher, a little blue and frigid, a little dry and formal, but one of God’s own elect, and he will be labeled for Paradise.

There will be an old Hard-shell clock resurrected, with throat whiskers, and wearing a shad-bellied coat and flap breeches. And when he is wound up a little, and a little oil is poured into his old wheels, he will swing out into space on the wings of the gospel with:

“My Dearly Beloved Brethren-ah; I was a-ridin’ along this mornin’ a-tryin’ to study up somethin’ to preach to this dyin’ congregation-ah; and as I rid up by the old mill pond-ah; lo and behold! there was an old snag a-stickin’ up out of the middle of the pond-ah; and an old mud turtle had clim up out uv the water and was a settin’ up on the old snag a-sunnin’ uv himself-ah; and lo! and behold-ah! when I rid up a leetle nearer to him-ah, he jumped off of the snag, ‘ker chug’ into the water, thereby proving emersion-eh!”

Our brains _are_ clocks, and our hearts are the pendulums. If we live right in this world, when the Resurrection Day shall come, the Lord God will polish the wheels, and jewel the bearings, and crown the casements with stars and with gold. And the pendulums will be harps encrusted with precious stones. They will swing to and fro on angel wings, making music in the ear of God, and flashing His glory through all the blissful cycles of eternity!

* * * * *

The mornings come, the evenings go,
Till raven locks turn white as snow;
The evenings go, the mornings come,
Till hearts are still and lips are dumb;
The morning steals the stars in vain,
For evening steals them back again.

The mornings are the rapturous thoughts of God; the evenings are His glorious dreams. We think within His thoughts, and dream within His dreams. The sun and stars are His mighty looms on which he weaves the lights and shadows that tint the earth and sky with colors divine. But let those looms of light for a moment stop; let their blissful shuttles cease to fly, and instantly, this beautiful world of ours, with all its bloom and beauty blighted, with all its mirth and music hushed, would lie naked and dead on the cold bosom of eternal night.

So it is with human life. It hath its spirit looms, and its throbbing shuttles forever delivering to the warp and woof of hope and memory, the shining threads of human kindness, and weaving them into gossamer webs of love around our hearts and in our homes. Every tender word we speak; every blessing we bestow is a thread of sunshine woven into somebody’s life; and all the smiles and sympathies which come to us from other hearts are threads of light and love woven into our own. But let the loom of love for a moment stop; let its blissful shuttle cease to fly, and that moment happiness will lie dead on the hearthstone, and laughter will perish among the roses at the door.

All men are Kings, but love is King of Kings. His imperial chariot rumbles over the cobblestones of human hearts, and the sighing millions are his worshipers. Wealth bows its haughty head before his throne, and pays penance with jewels and gold; labor bends the reverent knee and counts its beads of sweat; commerce folds its snowy wings and kneels on the billows in mute but eloquent adoration, and art chisels down the cold white prison walls of shapeless marble and leads dumb beauty forth, a breathless prayer to love.

Love is the only despot against whose tyranny no nation ever rebels; his yoke is the twining of tender arms, and the crack of his whip is a guileless kiss. Love is a regal anarchist; he climbs the ladder of laughter and throws bomb shells of mirth into the palace of the heart. Love is a royal minstrel; he scales the harp strings of song and serenades the soul. Love rides on the wings of butterflies, and, with his silken lariat, lassoes strolling lovers, and leads them down among the golden rod and clover blossoms. The dimples in the chin of mirth are the tell-tale tracks of love; and he lurks among the roses that bloom on beauty’s cheek.

THE RIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD

[This address, delivered January 18th, 1907, before the
convention of the Tennessee County Superintendents and
Teachers, is compiled from notes by Mr. Settle of the _Daily
American_, and from memory after delivery by its author, Mr.
Moore having made no notes at the time, the speech being the
occasion of extemporaneous talks at the close of an educational
rally. From many sources has come the request that it be
reproduced here.—EDITOR.]

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your very kind introduction concerning my “Bishop of Cottontown,” and the fact that you see in it an appeal for the childhood of the land. And I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the privilege of addressing you on this subject, so full of great and far reaching interest. And in the beginning permit me to say to you that I, myself, have been a teacher, and that I consider it the grandest profession of all those which make for the uplifting of the human race, save, perhaps, one. If you doubt that I have been there—to use the pungent vernacular of the times—if you doubt that I am familiar with the hardships, trials, ay, and the triumphs of the average teacher, permit me to relate this anecdote as the stamp of the coin, the chip of the block of the profession.

In my younger days, when the Alabama law required that a teacher should teach hygiene and physiology along with other studies—the object being to show the effects of alcohol on the human body—there came to my school a big, double-jointed plow boy, whose opportunities for education had been few, but he was of that stuff from which many of the great men of the republic have been made. After six months of grammar and hygiene, when the class was required to write a composition on the human anatomy, this is the marvelous work of art handed into me by the man of the plow:

“The human anatermy is devided into three parts, the Head, the Chist and the Stummic. The Head contains the brains, if any. The Chist contains the lights and the liver. The Stummic contains the bowels. There are five bowels, a, e, i, o, u and sometimes w and y.”

Have I not been there, my friends?

The rights of childhood—that is the subject you have given me, Mr. Chairman. Why, you might as well have asked me to speak upon the rights of God. You know, and I know, and all within the sound of my voice know, what are the rights of childhood—the right to an education, to health, to play, to work in proportion to its age and strength, to a fair chance and a square deal in this greatest country of the world’s greatest age.

We know, I say, what are the rights of a child. The question I wish to put to you is, are they getting those rights?

The distinguished gentleman and ex-Governor who has just preceded me, has said most eloquently much that I myself do most heartily endorse. And while I dislike to sound in this assembly one discordant note—to strike one chord of the minor here—where all seem so satisfied, I feel that I shall not be true to the great cause of childhood if I fail to say what I do know. It is good for us, now and then, to be shown our shortcomings. It is well for us to see at times into our soul of souls. It is progress to search after better things. Self-sufficiency is retrogression; self satisfaction is decay, and contentment is the sure messenger of degeneracy and death. There is no god as great as the God of Discontent. False glory is the masque of ignorance and self-conceit is the gaudy mantle of the king’s fool.

In telling you then, as the collected teachers and county superintendents of this state, that you have done nobly and performed your solemn duties, the distinguished gentleman has used an hyperbole which strikes me with ironical exaggeration and which has aroused in me this flow of bitterness and gall which I shall now pour out upon your complacent heads. And I do if with this amendment—that if you are doing your duty, if you have fought for the rights of childhood as you should and failed, then the law makers of this state, and the people of the state who send that kind every two years to this capitol are fearfully, wonderfully and criminally derelict in their duty to the children of their own firesides. For I have it from the lips of your chairman himself, in a speech he delivered in Columbia last fall, that in all the forty-five members of the great United States, in numbers of natural born illiterates, North Carolina stands at the very bottom and Tennessee, your own Tennessee, in which you are doing such noble, uplifting work, stands next to her, holding in her hand the black flag of illiteracy.

Does the full force of this get into your peripatetic souls to ruffle the feathers of your immaculate conceit? Great God, it hurts me to think of North Carolina, the birthplace of my father and all his fathers before him that I know anything of, the birthplace of Polk and Shelby and Robertson and a host of others as great sons as ever God gave to the republic, the land of the Anglo-Celt, of patriotism and tar-heel gameness—it hurts me, I repeat, to learn that she stands at the foot, and Tennessee, her daughter and her equal in past grandeur, patriotism and principles, stands next!

Don’t look at me as if you did not want to hear it! Neither do I want to hear it, but it is sometimes good for us to hear the truth—the truth even to crucifixion.

You may be ignorant, but God knows you will fight! Then fight for the white children of your state—fight these laws and the politicians who made them with strings to them—made them to be evaded. Fight for more and better schools and the abolition of child labor until your state stands in the column where its pedigree and its past record entitles it to stand!

For you will fight, thank the Lord!

I journeyed last spring to New Orleans just to see the plain upon which Tennesseans stood and fought to a bloody finish the bullies of beef-eating England and secured by their victory to our nation the Louisiana Purchase and a century of foreign peace, which the memory of that battle strengthens yet in the minds of their children. The old ditch was a swamp of water lilies; the breastworks had gone back to the plain; but the great Mississippi flowed on to the sea, unhampered by Spaniard or Briton, the great artery of a boundless, unbroken and undivided country. And I stood upon a soil made American by the blood of Tennesseans; I looked up at a sky purple, blue and beautiful, thrown over the landscape by the God of our fathers, even as a king of old would throw his royal purple over the masterpieces of the great master. And on the sky and on the land and on the bosom of the mighty river I read: JACKSON—JACKSON—JACKSON!

As I stood there the fighting spirit of my Irish sires came back to me as I saw the ghosts of those long-haired Tennesseans standing behind that bloody ditch fighting for the country which God had ordained should belong to them and the oppressed of the world. The hot blood surged in my cheek as I thought of the 60,000 little white children of the South and the 2,000,000 in the cotton mills and factories and mines and sweatshops of the nation, robbed of their rights of childhood by the greed of gold, the graft of politicians and the low ignorance and lazy debasement of their own parents, stealing from them not only the rights of an education, but even the right of life! And as the blood surged in my head, beating drumbeats in my brain and marshalling in the fine frenzy of prophetic visions the gray host that stood shoulder to shoulder there, I saw again that sallow-faced leader, with the form of a battle spear and the eyes of a god, riding up and down the long lines—bloody, blasphemous and brave—and forever settling with the invaders the issue they had postponed, but not abandoned, at Yorktown. And, seeing him, I saw again that pitiful picture in the Waxhaw Settlement—the Irish immigrant mother, her husband but a week ago buried in a poor white’s grave, two babes at her knees and this one at her breast, with no money and no home and no bread for their mouths, and I said: “Thank God, there were no cotton mills in South Carolina then, or Andrew Jackson would have died there before he was grown, in the lint and the dust and the grind of them, robbed of his childhood and of his chance in life!”

For he also was a poor white, just the meat for a nice, religious director of a cotton mill!

I thought of another Tennessean, and this time I stood in the Alamo, and again I saw ghosts—for who that has blood in his veins can stand there and not see them? And this was another poor white who died there before he would pull down the flag that floated above him, or could notch on the stock of his rifle the dead Mexicans who were piled up before him—dead—giving to his country an empire and to her coming children an inspiration that is greater than land and gold, “yea, than much fine gold.” And I thanked God again that in his youth there had been no cotton mills in Tennessee to do for Davy Crockett what the bear and panther and Indian could never do.

For he, too, was a poor white, and in his day would have been as good for a cotton mill as a coonskin for a pint of whiskey. And his little life would have gone out behind their shuttles of steel instead of the invader’s bayonet, and the mention of his name would have brought no trumpet-blast from the lips of fame: “Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat. The Alamo had none!”

Again I thought of a fighting Tennessean, also a poor white, in his youth, and the legitimate prey of the cotton mills—running his gunboats up Mobile Bay in spite of the bellowing forts and the broadsides of death and the hell of the hidden torpedo. And suddenly the engine stopped and a faint heart shouted from below: “_Back—back—torpedoes!_” But Farragut, from the greatest post of danger, shouted down: “Damn the torpedoes—go ahead!”

My friends, a man who would steal from a child his childhood, that which makes all his after life worth living, who would filch from it its body, brain and soul, is a human torpedo—a torpedo of hell. And, in the language of Farragut, I say unto you: “_Damn them and go ahead!_”

There was Forrest, another fighting Tennessean and a poor little white trash, one with fifteen brothers and sisters—just the ideal family made for the maw of a cotton mill—for upon such families do they declare their dividends. And if there had been mills in his day there would doubtless have been no Fort Donelson, Tishomingo Creek and Streight’s Raid. He also, like all his fighting predecessors, was a swearing Tennessean. And so I thank heaven for a good, honest, mouth-filling oath in a noble cause. And again I say unto you: “_By the Eternal, stand up for the children of your land!_”

They tell me that certain animals in the lower forms of life eat their young—a form of disease which we recognize in the sick hen which eats her egg and the swine which devours its young. Good God! Has our boasted civilization reached the sick and abnormal stage of its existence that it would live upon its young? Has too much wealth and too much glory and too much selfishness and high living made again of some men the man-eater that lived before Adam, except that the hair of his body and his tusks and his claws are gone, and now he is the clean-looking, well-fed, well-groomed son of hell that would fatten on the blood of his own breed? Talk not about his being a Christian, a follower of the sweet and beautiful Savior—the Christ, who, when he had hunted in all the mystic chambers of his God-like mind for some simile to express perfect purity and what we might hope to see in heaven, took the little poor ones in his arms and said: “This is what you must become—this is the kingdom of heaven.”

Once Sargent S. Prentiss, the greatest orator who ever saw the light of day in this country, because his speech was poetry and fire and reason, made a speech in New Orleans in behalf of the starving poor of Ireland. It was only ten minutes’ long, but it sent a shipload of food to Ireland. And he used in that speech a thought which Shakespeare has never surpassed. “He who is able and will not contribute to such a cause as this is not a man and has no right to wear the form. He should be sent back to the mints of nature and there reissued out of baser metal, a counterfeit on humanity!”

THE TESTER-BED AND ITS OLD-TIME COVERINGS

By Susie Gentry

Just now, when everyone who can has a “tester-bed,” the subject of these relics and their coverings is an interesting one.

The days of mahogany and rose-wood were also the days of handicraft of both needle and loom; and many were the beautiful articles of needlework and textiles that added grandeur and dignity to the tester—the _chef d’oeuvre_ of the mechanic’s art.

For every-day wear there were the hand-spun and woven white counterpanes in a variety of patterns: “The Honey-comb,” “Snowball,” “Walls of Jericho” and “O and N” were the most common designs. These were finished around three sides with a hand-tied or woven fringe, in depth from three inches to that of a hand’s length; they were very large, and hung down all around almost to the floor, that the trundle-bed under the big bed might not be visible.

For the “company room,” to be used on “grand opportunities”—as an Icelandic friend designated the special occasions on which the writer was to wear her gift of a hand-embroidered silver bullion belt—was the tufted counterpane, of most intricate and elaborate design. This was the outcome of some magic knowledge possessed by only the weavers of that bygone day. It had the design or pattern thrown up by little loops of the thread, quite short, that gave it the name of “tufted,” and a cameo effect—a flat background, with a raised design. The pattern most liked was “The Star.” This was an eight-pointed star in the center, smaller ones surrounding it, with an elaborate border of the “Greek Key,” finished with the always accompanying fringe.

The “Stuffed Spread” was another favorite covering, and the most prized of all except the silk quilt. The “Stuffed Spread” was made of a fine, closely woven white cambric and “back-stitched” (in stitches as even and close as those of the sewing machine of to-day), in lines of the width of a large knitting-needle apart, thus tracing the patterns of grapes and leaves, birds, baskets of flowers, bowls of fruit and geometric designs.

These little cases were stuffed with bits of cotton, by using a goose quill with which to push the cotton in, until the spread came forth a thing of beauty in its risen cords, and to be cherished by many generations for its exquisite needlework, ingenuity and patience, as exemplified by “Great-grandmother” or “Father’s Aunt Sallie.” Then there were the knitted and crocheted counterpanes, which have been revived in our day: the “Oak-leaf,” the “Shell,” “Heart” and “Star;” the crocheted ones to be used over a colored “comfort” of such color as the taste dictated.

The “Applied-work” was another prized covering. The background of this was white cambric or domestic, with lovely roses and leaves, or morning glories in their natural colors, cut from “painted cambric” or “chintz calico,” and applied to the spread in a central design and border. The spaces of white were most beautifully quilted in intricate patterns of every description. We have seen one such spread, made by a Kentucky woman, quilted in the center with the arms of the United States.

The patch-work quilts were made of or “pieced” in the favorite patterns of “The Rose and Bud,” “The Swamp Lily,” “The Sunflower,” “The Tree of Paradise,” “The Kentucky Feather,” “The Rising Sun,” “Log Cabin” and other designs displaying equal ingenuity in their origin and in their execution. These were in as natural colors as could be gotten in the “oil calicos,” which consisted of reds, yellows, blues and greens and the “fast pinks.” Some really beautiful and artistic effects were achieved by those who had artistic taste.

There were the silk quilts—not usual, as silk was not so easily obtainable as to-day—that were used only on bridal and festive occasions, when kindred and friends from afar were expected, and for whom the “fatted calf” was killed and all the best possessions brought into use. Some of the designs for these were the “Lone Star,” “Small Stars,” “Pickle-dish,” “Hexagon” and “Block” patterns. These were the joy and pride of the thrifty, beauty-loving housewife. For winter wear, the wool or cotton, sometimes mixed, home-dyed and home-woven coverlets, were used; in patterns of the “Rose of Sharon,” the “Walls of Troy” and many now forgotten names and designs. The colors were combinations of red, white, blue or green, with an introducing of black here and there.

Flat feather bolsters were used on these beds, the ends of the slips hanging down, and ornamented with eyelet embroidery or netted lace.

Nowadays the coverlets are frequently used as portieres, and they are quite artistic and handsome for this purpose.

The word tester is of curious origin, coming down to us from the Norman _testere_, a head covering. The English speedily contracted this to “tester,” which name they gave to helmets. Chaucer speaks of “the shieldes brighte, testers and trappures” of the Crusaders, and later the word came to apply to the canopy placed over the bed to support the draperies which protected the sleeper from wandering draughts, so plentiful in those old stone castles. Sir Horace Walpole writes early in the eighteenth century of a visit to a friend’s seat, where he found “no tester to the bed and slept with the saddles and portmanteaus heaped on me to keep off the cold.” Our colonists brought the tester-bed with them, but in this balmy climate they were able to dispense with the curtains; they did not, however, leave off the mountainous feather bed, which necessitated the aid of “a pair of steps” to reach its downy heights. By its side was placed the candle-stand, with its brass candle-stick and snuffers; and in the days “when grandma danced the minuet” with grandpa, brave in satin knee-breeches and buckled shoon, they dreamed of no possibility of rest more hygienic than that obtained on the home-cured goose feathers, with the home-spun sheets, blankets and counterpanes which covered their tester-beds.

AUNT JANE’S MOCKING-BIRD

By Alma L. Stewart

“De sassy little deb’l, if dat jes’ don’t beat anything I eber seed,” Aunt Jane was saying, as she vigorously knocked the well-worn breadtray against the windowsill, if a hole two by four cut in the side of the little log cabin can be said to have a window sill, to dislodge the fragments of dough left from the preparation of the morning meal. After a few more well-intended knocks she dried the tray and hung it and the dishcloth on their own nail back of the small stove, and grasping the corner of her apron she dried her hands and was mopping her face as she turned and saw me in the doorway.

“Laws a-massy, Missus, whar’d yer drap from? Come in, dat is, ef yer can find de way wid so much trash strowin’ roun’.

“Git out in de yard, niggers,” she said to a group of dirty, half-naked little negroes, who were investigating the mysteries of a sardine can under the table. In their effort to obey their seemingly irate mother, they nearly upset the rickety old table, one leg of which was propped up with a broken brick that Aunt Jane had brought from the sidewalk of the town four miles away for that very purpose. “Bricks is sca’ce in dese parts,” she had said to a neighbor, who had “ax’d her what in de world she wuz gwin’ter do wid dat brick?” And so the vanquished pickaninnies with timorous backward glances, disappeared, rubbing their heads as they went.

“Viney, do git dat cher fer Miss Annie. Jes’ lay dem clothes on de bed. My soul alibe, Missus, dese here niggers nearly runs me ’stracted.” And she turned to me with the air of one whose last hope was gone.

But I knew how to take Aunt Jane’s moods, for she would have torn anyone else literally to pieces had they dared to intimate anything detrimental to the “life and charuc’ter of her chillun.” And so I seated myself comfortably in Aunt Jane’s only rocker, which she declared no one ever sat in “’cept her white folks.” Meanwhile she busied herself with the pots and pans of the stove, talking as fast as she could, asking me a hundred questions about the members of my family. I had come to see her about taking my laundry. My present washwoman had rubbed all the buttons off my husband’s shirts, and insisted on starching the nether parts of them, while my own cambric ones and linen dresses were as limber as Aunt Jane’s proverbial dishrag. Aunt Jane had been in our family when a girl and I felt that I could depend upon her.

“Law, Miss Annie, dat nigger don’t know de fust rudermints erbout washin’ an’ irun’n.” And she gave her pan a telling scrape by way of emphasis.

“Talk ter me ’bout dese town niggers,” and she went to the same little window to empty her dish-pan into the pig-trough placed beneath it, for convenience Aunt Jane had said.

“Well, ef he ain’t dar agin,” she exclaimed, turning to me as if I knew who “he” was.

“What is it, Jane?” I asked, going to the window myself, wondering what was outside of the window to call forth all these exclamations.

“Oh, it’s dat sassy little deb’l, dat yander rascal ob a mocking-bird—er-mind out, Missus, don’t tech dat table wid putty white dress o’ yourn. Dis here hole ain’t fit fer yer ter come in no how—but dat bird, he do beat all I eber seed. He ain’t skeered o’ nothin’, and sing! My, tain’t nothin’ like it! I do b’leve he sings all de night long. Why, de tother night ’bout twelve er’ clock, Jake come in ’bout half drunk. Jake’s alright when he’s sober, but jes’ let him git drunk, he’s de deb’l hissef, dat’s all’s to it. So when he git dat way I gits out, me an’ de chillun’.

“Well, we went out yander under dat Cherokee rose yer see by de fence dar, and laid low. We wuz skeer’d purty nigh ter death. Ever’thing wuz jes’ as quiet an’ still, ’cept Jake blusterin’ roun’ wid de pans in de cabin, when all ter wunce dat bird jes’ broke out, mos’ like a brass-band, right over our heads. I tell yer, Miss Annie, it made me feel creepy. Seem’d like hev’un wuz right over us, while dar wuz de bad place purty close by, ’cause Jake wuz a raisin’ a terrible roukus wid de pans try’nter find somp’in ter eat.

“So, dat’s de way ’tis, Missus,” and she nodded her head meditatively, “when de deb’l is try’nter raise a roukus wid yer hearts an’ souls, de angels is right over yer singin’ all de time, ef we’ll be still an’ listen.” And she stopped in a thoughtful attitude.

But her reverie was rudely broken up by such din of screaming and yelling as only half-starved African youngsters are capable of making.

“What on de top side er creashun ails dem yunguns?” she exclaimed, as we both went to the door. There we saw Viney armed with a long dog-fennel, followed by the others similarly equipped, in a wild dash for a lanky black cat. We both laughed at the pursuit. But, suddenly, above their yells Aunt Jane caught the distress call of the mocking-bird. That was enough for her. She seized her battling stick and flew after them, coming quickly to where they were gathered in a fence corner.

“Lemme in here, git erway niggers,” as she breathlessly tumbled two of them over one another, and with a terrific whack came down upon the fastened cat, who was still tenaciously gripping the dying bird.

I stood transfixed, not realizing what had taken place, until I saw them returning to the house. Viney was dragging the lifeless body of the thief tied by his hind leg to her apron string, while the boys were meting out vengeance to him in no unstinted terms, slashing him vigorously with one hand, the other busily engaged holding up their disjointed pantaloons.

In the lead was Aunt Jane. The little pile of grey feathers on the corner of her apron, resting tenderly on her hand, was all that was left of her “sassy little deb’l,” the beautiful mocking-bird.

SOME SOUTHERN WRITERS

JAMES RYDER RANDALL

By Kate Alma Orgain

As a rule all national airs have been composed rapidly, under the strong inspiration of some moment of intense and enthusiastic feeling, and their writers little dreamed at the time of the power and influence their passionate appeals would have. National lyrics play an important part in every country’s history. What has moved and held the army of France like “The Marseillaise Hymn?” Nothing rouses the Southern soldier like our glorious “Dixie,” and since the hour when the notes and words of “Maryland, My Maryland” first sounded on the air, the noble song has always started the pulse-beat higher and faster in every Southern heart.

It is a pleasant fact for all Southern people, of Irish descent, to remember that the four grand lyric poems of the South were written by Irishmen, or men of Irish parentage. “Dixie” was the work of Dan Emmet, “The Bonnie Blue Flag” that of Harry McCarthy, “The Conquered Banner” came from Father Ryan, and “Maryland, My Maryland,” whose beauty has thrilled the souls of thousands, was, as we know, written by James Ryder Randall. In a letter received by the writer not long ago, Mr. Randall says that on his father’s side he is of Irish descent, thus giving us in our Southern airs a quartette of Irish talent. Mr. Randall was born in Baltimore in 1839, received the principal part of his education at Georgetown, D. C., where he went to school from his tenth to his seventeenth year. Here he obtained a fine classical education, but owing to delicate health could not entirely finish his course. His work in life has been chiefly editorial, and at different times he has been connected with the newspapers of Augusta, New Orleans and Baltimore, and has never devoted himself exclusively to literature. In 1861 James Ryder Randall was, though very young, a professor at Poydras College upon the Fausse Rivière of Louisiana. Only a stripling, just from school, with a soul full of poetry and romance, the condition of the South, the first gun at Fort Sumter, the scent of the battle afar, thrilled his ardent heart, and “one sleepless night in April, in a second story room of Poydras College, seated at a little old wooden desk,” he wrote the lyric poem that has been called the “Marseillaise of the Confederacy.” The song, set to music of an old college melody, “Lauringer Horatius,” by its passionate appeal, caught the attention of the Southern heart, and was sung in field and camp, in cottage and palace. It was first set in print in the _New Orleans Delta_.

Mr. Randall wrote also a number of other beautiful poems, among them being “The Sole Sentry,” “Arlington,” “John Pelham,” and “The Cameo Bracelet.” “The Unconquered Banner” was written in reply to Father Ryan’s “Conquered Banner,” and its beauty and spirit can be seen by even a few lines:

“Men die, but principles can know no death,
No last extinguishment of mortal breath.
We fought for what our fathers held in trust;
It did not fall forever in the dust.”

Hardly less noted at the time of publication than “Maryland, My Maryland,” was the poem “There’s Life in the Old Land Yet.”

In a late paper from Columbus, Ohio, we find the following from Atherton Hastings:

“It was my good fortune to meet recently in New Orleans Mr. James Ryder Randall, the author of ‘Maryland, My Maryland.’ He is an old man now, but vigorous in mind and body. He talked freely and without prejudice of the one-time sectional differences. Individually, he had no apologies for the part he played in the great conflict. His sentiments on the basic principles that once divided the South from the North were perhaps mellowed by age, but not materially changed. I could scarcely realize that this mild-mannered old man, with the soft Southern voice, was the same who, nearly half a century ago, lighted and held aloft the wildly flaming torch of Southern patriotism.”

Modestly and with quiet dignity Mr. Randall still pursues his editorial work, publishing in New Orleans, _The Morning Star_, a paper of great purity and strong high purpose. Shall we wait, holding silently our alabaster boxes of love and praise till the green sod covers the author of “Maryland, My Maryland,” the song which, Atherton Hastings says, “did more to unite the Confederate States than any other one force?”

The state of Maryland is thinking of having a homecoming of her sons and daughters, and will ask James Ryder Randall to be her guest of honor. Why should not the writer of “Maryland, My Maryland” be thus honored by all our Southern states at various reunions? Colonel J. Frank Supplee, of Baltimore, says he has “never found any section of this country in which this noble song is unknown.” We can in no better way instill love of country into the hearts of our young people than through our national songs, and we should see to it that “Maryland, My Maryland” be sung, and that the memory of its author be kept fresh and green in the heart of every child.

SOME QUAINT OLD BALLADS

By Virginia Chambers

Mammy used to sing them to us—those quaint, old ballads. Now, there are mammies and mammies, and our mammy considered herself a “quality lady.” She and all her family had always been house servants, and, as such, looked with utter contempt upon the “field hands.”

Mammy tried to live up to her exalted position; and while she had many of the characteristics of her race, she had tried to imitate “Ole Mistis” until her manners were almost ludicrously dignified and prim. As a result of this, the songs with which she entertained us were those she had heard from the grandees of old Virginia, when she was young. I am growing old myself, and Mammy was an old woman when I was a child, so her songs belong to many generations past, being, most of them, evidently from England.

I can only give them as I remember them, having never seen one of them in print; and as they are but a child’s recollections of an ignorant old negro’s songs, it is to be presumed that they are very faulty. However, even as we heard them, they seem worth preserving.

The mind can easily call up the picture—the locusts and catalpas clustered around the back porch of our old plantation home—Mammy in her low chair under our favorite tree—the baby in her lap—the group of children all around her, all waiting impatiently for her to croon the baby to sleep and go with us to gather the jasmine flowers for “Miss ’Gusta’s” pomatum, or the raspberries for “Ole Mistis’s” lunch.

We must have been of a sentimental turn, for the chief favorite was a doleful ditty, called

LORD LOVELL

Lord Lovell, he stood at his castle gate,
A-combing his milk-white steed,
When out came the lady Nancy Bell,
To wish her lover good speed-speed-speed,
To wish her lover good speed.

“Oh, where are you going, Lord Lovell?” she said,
“And where are you going?” said she.
“I’m going away, Lady Nancy Bell,
Strange countries for to see-see-see,
Strange countries for to see.”

And when he’d been gone a year and a day,
Strange countries for to see,
A languishing thought came over his mind.
His lady-love for to see-see-see,
His lady-love for to see.

So he rode and he rode on his milk-white steed,
Till he came to London town,
And there he heard the great church bell,
And the people were gathered around-’round-’round,
And the people were gathered around.

“Oh, what is the matter?” Lord Lovell, he said,
“And what is the matter?” said he.
And then they said: “A lady is dead;
Some called her the Lady Nancy-cy-cy,
Some called her the Lady Nancy.”

Lady Nancy, she died as it might be to-day,
Lord Lovell, he died on the morrow;
Lady Nancy, she died of pure, pure love,
Lord Lovell, he died of sorrow-row-row,
Lord Lovell, he died of sorrow.

Lady Nancy was buried on one hill top;
Lord Lovell was buried on t’other;
And out of her bosom there grew a red rose,
And out of her lover’s a brier-er-er,
And out of her lover’s a brier.

They grew and they grew, to the church steeple top,
And they couldn’t grow any higher;
And then they formed a true lover’s knot, knot,
Which all true lovers admire-er-er,
Which all true lovers admire.

The tune is even more ridiculous than the words, and the repetition in each stanza is positively ludicrous.

Next in our esteem was a comic hunting song, of which I recall these stanzas:

They hunted and they hollered,
And the first thing they did find
Was a frog in the marshes,
And that they left behind.
Look a-there, now! Look a-there!

Some said it was a frog,
And some said nay;
Some said it was a bird
With its feathers shot away.
Look a-there, now! Look a-there!

So they hunted and they hollered,
And the next thing they did find
Was the moon in the elements,
And that they left behind.
Look a-there, now! Look a-there!

Some said it was the moon,
And some said nay;
Some said it was a cheese
With the half cut away.
Look a-there, now! Look a-there!

So they hunted and they hollered,
And the next thing they did find
Was a barn in the meadow,
And that they left behind.
Look a-there, now! Look a-there!

Some said it was a barn,
And some said nay;
Some said it was a church
With the steeple blown away.
Look a-there, now! Look a-there!

So they hunted and they hollered,
And the next thing they did find
Was an owl in the bushes,
And that they left behind.
Look a-there, now! Look a-there!

Some said it was an owl,
And some said nay.
Some said it was _the Devil_
And they all ran away!
Look a-there, now! Look a-there!

This irreverent mention of His Satanic Majesty was, to our childish ears, almost an unpardonable sin, and we went to our little beds shuddering and confessing ourselves “miserable sinners,” even to have listened to such a word.

A third ballad seems to belong to old colonial times. It went thus:

In good old Colony times,
When we were under the king,
Three sons of Moore’s were turned out doors
Because they could not sing, sing,
Because they could not sing.

The first one, he was a miller,
And the second, he was a weaver,
And the third one, he was a little tai_lor_,
With the broadcloth under his arm, arm,
With the broadcloth under his arm.

Now the miller, he stole corn,
And the weaver, he stole yarn,
And the little tai_lor_, he stole broadcloth,
For to keep these three rogues warm,
For to keep these three rogues warm.

But the miller got drowned in his pond,
And the weaver got tangled in his yarn;
And the devil clapped his claw on the little tai_lor_,
With the broadcloth under his arm, arm,
With the broadcloth under his arm.

There were many others, but I do not remember them well enough to write them out. Barbara Allen was a great favorite, but with that all are familiar.

Occasionally, as a great treat, Mammy would unbend sufficiently to let us have some of the little negroes from the quarters come down to the house and sing for us, and while we loved Mammy’s old-fashioned ditties best, we were always vastly entertained by such coon songs as

Snake baked a hoe-cake,
An’ set the frawg to mind it.
Lizard come an’ stole it,
An’ frawg, he couldn’t find it!

And this, with accompaniment of patting and shuffling:

Wake up, Jacob, let’s go hunt’n’,
An’ ketch us a skel’ton to cook with a punk’n.

Wake up, Amos, day is a-breakin’,
Peas in the pot an’ hoe-cake a-bakin’.

LILLIAN KENDRICK BYRN

DON Q IN THE SIERRA. By K. and H. Prichard. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. Price, $1.50.

The thousands of admirers of “Don Q,” the crafty bandit, elusive and fearless, with claws under velvet that tear with merciless fury when roused to action, will be delighted with these new chronicles of further thrilling adventures of that mysterious character. The joint authorship of the “Don Q” stories is the rather unusual combination of mother and son, who, having traveled extensively in Spain and Spanish America, are able to put the local color into their stories with sure hands. It would, perhaps, be saying too much to declare that the portrait of the bandit is drawn from acquaintance with the original character, but no one can doubt that the authors have met with many adventures and heard many stories at first hand which have suggested the polished outlaw.

SAUL OF TARSUS. By Elizabeth Miller. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. Price, $1.50.

This story presents Saul during the time of his persecution of the Nazarenes and the death of St. Stephen of Galilee, before he became St. Paul of the Christian Church. The period immediately succeeding the crucifixion is the most stirringly interesting of any in the world’s history. Never before or since has there been such a wave of deep feeling, of psychological uplift and high thought, mingled with the warring of the fiercest passions and the basest corruption. Miss Miller has given us, as in “The Yoke,” a skillful weaving of heart-stirring incidents and a love story of the purest and noblest type.

A CHILD’S BOOK OF ABRIDGED WISDOM. By Childe Harold. New York: Paul Elder & Co. Price, $1.50.

A delight to the beauty-loving soul is this little book for the amusement of the children, bound in heavy gray boards, with quaint, corded back and heavy hand-pressed paper. The drawings and marginal decorations are in true Childe Harold style, which is a guarantee of their worth.

OVER IN THE MEADOW. By Olive A. Wadsworth. New York and San Francisco: Morgan Shepard Co. Price, $1.

Mrs. Wadsworth has elaborated and improved an old nursery classic. The first eight topics are in their original form, but she has added four others in the same style, and Mabel Wood Hill has set them to appropriate music. Each full page is prefaced by another verse on the same subject, but in different meter, and the whole is beautifully bound in brown boards, with line decorations of birds and beasts in colors, the drawings being the handiwork of Marguerite Wood and Harold Sichel.

THE ROMANCE OF JOHN BAINBRIDGE. By Henry George, Jr. New York: The Macmillan Co. Price, $1.50.

A big factory for art stained glass is not a likely place to look for romance, but Mr. George has laid in such a scene a story of fascinating interest. The action covers also the great West and mining, timber cutting and the practice of law in those regions. The central theme of the story, however, is a study of municipal government under existing methods of election and maintenance. Conspiracies, lobbying, bribery, blackmailing and other concomitants of present-day government politics are laid bare in a convincing manner, while the love story keeps and holds the reader’s interest in these questions.

ROMANCE ISLAND. By Zona Gale. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. Price, $1.50.

The discovery of a fourth dimension is surely a very interesting thing and no one can give a more thrilling account of the consequences of such a discovery than the gifted Zona Gale, whose Pelleas and Ettarre stories are so widely known and loved. The adventure, the mystery and swift rush of events are so thrilling in this island of Miss Gale’s discovery that the reader loses himself in the absorbing account, and it is only when the book is laid down with a sigh when finished that he realizes that he has been filching time from his usual rest or occupation for a sojourn in the regions of enchantment.

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. By Clifton Johnson. New York: The Macmillan Co. Price, $2.

This is a thoroughly excellent and descriptive account of the many lovely nooks and corners that dot the great valley of the “Father of Waters.” It is also a study of the types of the inhabitants of the section and contains much interesting and valuable historical matter. The illustrations are from the author’s own camera and add greatly to the interest of the chronicle.

THE UPPER HAND. By Emerson Gifford Taylor. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. Price, $1.50.

In the ’squire’s house, in a New England house, there has been a tragedy in the night. Later a piratical seafarer appears and the village becomes the scene of strange adventures. The mysterious bringing of a little girl to the squire’s house, her subsequent bringing up and the winning of the old man’s reluctant affections, her love affair, complicated with the reappearance of the sailor, whose power over the ’squire only adds to the mystery, and the final adjustment of all the puzzling questions, bringing happiness and justice to all, makes a readable story.

FAMOUS ACTOR FAMILIES IN AMERICA. By Montrose J. Moses. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co. Price, $2.

A rare value attaches to this book from the fact that it is not only a succinct account of the actors who have made a name on the American stage and transmitted to their children their talent, but also reproduces a number of interesting old portraits, which are of the greatest value to the student of the beginnings of the American stage. The histories of such well-known families as the Jeffersons, the Drews and Barrymores, the Booths and other favorites will find readers everywhere. The whole matter is well treated and beautifully illustrated.

BLIND ALLEYS. By George Cary Eggleston. Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. Price, $1.50.

The titles of Mr. Eggleston’s previous books, “A Carolina Cavalier,” “Evelyn Byrd,” “A Daughter of the South,” etc., show the chosen field of his work to be the painting of Southern romances. In “Blind Alleys,” however, he has selected an entirely different field and has given us a significant and typical study of social conditions in New York. There is a sweet and wholesome love story, of course. Indeed, there are two of them, and altogether the novel is one of exceptional interest.

WITH OUR READERS

This department is open to our readers for the expression of their opinions on questions of public interest. The editors, while inviting contributions bearing on measures and events of general interest, reserve the right to exclude such matter as is not deemed suitable, and are not responsible for opinions expressed.

FRANCE AND THE CHURCH

A great epoch is transpiring in the republic of France—greater, in fact, than the triumphant continuance of the French democracy. The passing of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in that country presents a more marvelous condition or situation than the continued perpetuation of the republican form of government.