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The pensive reader must not take it for granted that
in going into the country we escaped all the annoyances of domestic life
peculiar to the city, or that we fell heir to no new ones, such as we had
never before experienced. He must remember that this is a world of
compensations, and that nowhere will he be likely to find either an
unmixed good or an unmixed evil. Such was exactly our experience. But on
summing up the two, the balance was decidedly in our favor. It is true
that though the town close by us had well-paved streets, yet the walk of
half a mile to reach them was a mere gravel path, which was sometimes
muddy in summer, and sloppy with unshovelled snow in winter. But I walked
over it almost daily to the post-office, not even imagining that it was
worse than a city pavement. The tramp of the children to school was not
longer than they had been used to, and my wife and daughters thought it no
hardship to go shopping among the well-supplied stores quite as frequently
as when living in the city. Indeed, I sometimes thought they went a little
oftener. They were certainly as well posted up as to the new fashions as
they had ever been, while the fresh country air, united with
constant exercise, kept them in good appetite, even to the rounding of
their cheeks, and the maintenance of a better color in them than ever.
As to society, they very soon made acquaintances
quite as agreeable as could be desired. Visiting became a very frequent
thing; and after a few months I let in a suspicion that the girls found
twice as many beaux as in the city, though there the average number is
always larger than in the country. On throwing out an insinuation of this
kind to Kate, one summer evening, after a large party of young folks had
concluded their visit, she made open. confession that it was so, and
volunteered her conviction that they were decidedly more agreeable. I
admit this confession did not surprise me, as there was one young man
among the party who had become especially attentive to Kate—bringing her
the new magazines as soon as they were out, sundry books and pictorials,
and always having a deal to say to her, with a singular genius for getting
her away from the rest of the company, so that most of their mysterious
small-talk could be heard by none but themselves. Another remark which I
made to Kate on a subsequent occasion, touching this subject, covered her
bright face with so many blushes that I ventured to mention the whole
matter to my wife; but she made so light of the thing that I said no more
at the time, thinking, perhaps, that the women were most likely the best
judges in such cases. But I have since
discovered that my prognostications were much more to be depended on than
hers.
Then the walks for miles around us were excellent,
and we all became great walkers, for walking we found to be good. Not
merely stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbor to neighbor, but
stretching away out into the country, to the freshest fields, the shadiest
woods, the highest ridges, and the greenest lawns. We found that however
sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it
cheered up and smiled. However listless the limbs may have been by steady
toil, here they were braced up, and the lagging gait became buoyant again.
However stubborn the memory may be in presenting that only which was
agonizing, and insisting on that which cannot be retrieved, on walking
among the glowing fields it ceases to regard the former, and forgets the
latter. Indeed, we all came to esteem the mere breathing of the fresh wind
upon the commonest highway to be rest and comfort, which must be felt to
be believed.
But then we had neither gas nor hydrant water, those
two prime luxuries of city life. Yet there was a pump in a deep well under
a shed at the kitchen door, from which we drew water so cold as not at any
time to need that other city luxury, ice. It was gratifying to see how
expertly even the small children operated with the pump-handle. In a
month we ceased to regret the hydrants. As to gas, we had the modern
lamps, which give so clear a light; not so convenient, it must be
confessed, but then they did not cost us over
half as much, neither did we sit up near so long at night. There were two
mails from the city daily, and the newsboy threw the morning paper into
the front door while we sat at breakfast. The evening paper came up from
the city before we had supped. We had two daily mails from New York,
besides a telegraph station. The baker served us twice a day with bread,
when we needed it; the oysterman became a bore, he rang the bell so often;
and the fish-wagon, with sea-fish packed in ice, directly from the shore,
was within call as often as we desired, with fish as cheap and sound as
any to be purchased in the city. Groceries and provisions from the store
cost no more than they did there, but they were no cheaper. But in the
item of rent the saving was enormous,—really half enough, in my case, to
keep a moderate family. Many's the time, when sweating over the weeds,
have I thought of this last heavy drain on the purse of the city toiler,
and thanked Heaven that I had ceased to work for the landlord.
We had books as abundantly as aforetime, as we
retained our share in the city library, and became subscribers to that in
the adjoining town. It is true that the road in front of us was never
thronged like Chestnut-street, but we neither sighed after the crowd nor
missed its presence. We saw no flash of jewelry, nor heard the rustling of
expensive silks, except the few which on particular occasions were sported
within our own unostentatious domicile. Our entire wardrobes were
manifestly on a scale less costly than ever. Our
old city friends were apparently a great way oft, but as they could reach
us in an hour either by steamboat or rail, they quickly found us out. The
relish of their society was heightened by distance and separation. In
short, while far from being hermits, we were happy in ourselves. I think
my wife became a perfectly happy woman—what it had been the great study of
my wedded life to make her—the very sparkle and sunshine of the house. She
possessed the magic secret of being contented under any circumstances. The
current of my life had never been so dark and unpropitious, that the
sunshine of her happy face, falling across its turbid course, failed to
awake an answering gleam.
Speaking of visitors from abroad, I noticed that our
city friends came to make their visits on the very hottest summer days,
when, of all others, we were ourselves sufficiently exhausted by the heat,
and were disposed to put up with as little cooking and indoor work as
possible. But as such visitations were not exactly comfortable to the
visited, so we could not see how they could be any more agreeable to the
visitors. Yet they generally remarked, even when the mercury was up to
ninety-five, "How much cooler it is in the country!" They did really enjoy
either themselves or the heat. But my wife told them it was only the
change of scene that made the weather tolerable, and that if they lived in
the country they would soon discover it to be quite as hot as in the city.
For my part, I bore the heat admirably, though
tanned by the sun to the color of an aborigine; but I enjoyed the
inexpressible luxury of going constantly in my shirt-sleeves. I can hardly
find words to describe the feeling of comfort which I enjoyed for full
seven months out of the twelve from this little piece of
latitudinarianism, the privilege of country life, but an unknown luxury
in the city.
I saw that this press of company in the very
hottest weather imposed an unpleasant burden on my wife, for she and my
two oldest daughters were the sole caterers; and I intended to say
something to her concerning it, as soon as a large party, then staying
several days with us, should have concluded their visit. But on going into
our chamber that very evening, she surprised me by asking if I could tell
her why, when Eve was made from one of Adam's ribs, there was not a hired
girl made at the same time, for to her mind it took three to make a pair—
he, she, and a hired girl. I replied that I had not given much time to the
study of navigation, but that I quite understood her meaning, and that it
was exactly what I had myself been thinking of. If Adam's rib, after
producing Eve, had not held out to produce a hired girl also, I told her
there was a much quicker way of getting what she wanted, and that the
first morning paper she might pick up would produce her twenty hired
girls.
In this way, before the summer was over, I procured
her a servant, thus making her little establishment complete. For this
luxury we paid city wages. But this was a small item, when I saw how much
her presence
relieved my wife. After that, I do not think she complained quite as much
of the hot weather, nor was she inclined so frequently to repeat her
former observation, that the sultry days always brought the most company.
Indeed, I am certain that on one or two occasions, when the dog-days were
terribly oppressive, she prevailed on different
parties to prolong their stay for nearly a week.
Now, this taking on of Betty did not
imply that my daughters were to be brought up to do nothing —or to do
everything that is fashionable imperfectly. My wife had already educated
them in domestic duties—not merely to marry, to go off with
husbands in a hurry, and afterwards
from them. To the two
eldest she had taught a trade, and they were both able to earn their salt.
They could not only dress themselves, but knew how to make their dresses
and bonnets, and all the clothing for the younger children. She cultivated
in them all that was necessary in the position in which they were born,
one thing at a time, but that thing in perfection; so that if parents were
impoverished, or if in after-life reverses should overtake themselves,
they might feel independent in the ability to earn their own support. She
frowned upon the senseless rivalries of social life, as destructive of
morals, mind, and health, and imbued their spirits with a devout
veneration for holy things. She taught them no worship of the almighty
dollar, but sound, practical economy, the art of saving the pieces. Surely
it
must be education alone which fills the world with
two kinds of girls—one kind which appears best abroad, good for parties,
rides, and visits, and whose chief delight is in such things—good, in
fact, for little else. The other is the kind that appears best at home,
graceful in the parlor, captivating in social intercourse, useful in the
sick chamber as in the the dining-room, and cheerful in all the precincts
of home. They differ widely in character. One is often the family torment;
the other the family blessing: one a moth consuming everything about her;
the other a sunbeam, inspiring life and gladness all along her pathway.
As my wife embodied in herself all that to me appeared desirable in woman,
so she possessed the faculty of transfusing her own virtues into the
constitution of her daughters.
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