Page images
PDF
EPUB

waters, in which she perished.-Long's Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River.

Down a broad river of the western wilds,
Piercing thick forest glooms, a light canoe
Swept with the current: fearful was the speed
Of the frail bark, as by tempest's wing
Borne leaf-like on to where the mist of spray
Rose with the cataract's thunder. Yet within,
Proudly, and dauntlessly, and all alone
Save that a babe lay sleeping at her breast,
A woman stood: upon her Indian brow
Sat a strange gladness, and her dark hair waved
As if triumphantly. She press'd her child,
In its bright slumber to her beating heart,
And lifted her sweet voice, that rose awhile
Above the sound of waters, high and clear

Wafting a wild proud strain, her song of death:

Roll swiftly to the spirit's land, thou mighty stream and free!
Father of ancient waters, roll! and bear our lives with thee!

The weary bird that storms have toss'd, would seek the sunshin's calmı,
And the deer that hath the arrow's hurt, flies to the woods of balm;
Roll on my warrior's eye hath look'd upon another's face,
And mine hath faded from his soul, as fades a moonbeam's trace;
My shadow comes not o'er his path, my whisper to his dream,
He flings away the broken reed-roll swifter yet, thou stream!
The voice that spoke of other days is hush'd within his breast,
But mine its lonely music haunts, and will not let me rest.
It sings a low and mournful song of gladness that is gone,
I cannot live without that light-Father of waves! roll on!
Will he not miss the bounding step that met him from the chase?
The heart of love that made his home an ever-sunny place?

The hand that spread the hunter's board, and deck'd his couch of yore?
He will not!-roll, dark, foaming stream, ON to the BETTER SHORE!
Some blessed fount amidst the woods of that bright land must flow,
Whose waters from my soul may lave the memory of this woe;
Some gentle wind must whisper there, whose breath may waft away
The burden of the heavy night, the sadness of the day.
And thou my babe! though born, like me, for woman's weary lot,
Smile!-to that wasting of the heart, my own! I leave thee not-
Too bright a thing art thou, to pine in aching love away-
Thy mother bears thee, fair young Fawn! from sorrow and decay;
She bears thee, to the glorious bowers where none are heard to weep,
And where th' unkind one hath no power again to trouble sleep;
And where the soul shall find its youth, as wak'ning from a dream-
One moment, and that realm is ours-on, on, dark rolling stream!

HALF-LENGTHS FROM LIFE-OPERATIVE DEMOCRACY.-MRS. KIRKLAND.

"A theme of perilous risk

Thou handlest, and hot fires beneath thy path
The treacherous ashes nurse."

"CAN'T you let our folks have some eggs?" said Daniel Web ster Larkins, opening the door, and putting in a little strawcolored head and a pair of very mild blue eyes just far enough to reconnoitre; 66 can't you let our folks have some eggs? Our old hen don't lay nothing but chickens now, and mother can't eat pork, and she a'n't had no breakfast, and the baby a'n't drest, nor nothin'!"

"What is the matter, Webster? Where's your girl?

"Oh! we ha'n't no girl but father, and he's had to go 'way to-day to a raisin'-and mother wants to know if you can't tell her where to get a girl?"

Poor Mrs. Larkins ! Her husband makes but an indifferent "girl," being a remarkable public-spirited person. The good lady is in very delicate health, and having an incredible number of little blue eyes constantly making fresh demands upon her time and strength, she usually keeps a girl when she can get one. When she cannot, which is unfortunately the larger part of the time, her husband dresses the children-mixes stir-cakes for the eldest blue eyes to bake on a griddle, which is never at rest-milks the cow-feeds the pigs-and then goes to his "business," which we have supposed to consist principally in helping at raisings, wood-bees, huskings, and such like important affairs; and "girl" hunting-the most important and arduous, and profitless of all.

Yet it must be owned that Mr. Larkins is a tolerable carpenter, and that he buys as many comforts for his family as most of his neighbors. The main difficulty seems to be that "help" is not often purchasable. The very small portion of our damsels who will consent to enter anybody's doors for pay, makes the chase after them quite interesting from its uncertainty; and the damsels themselves, subject to a well known foible of their. sex, become very coy from being over-courted. Such racing and chasing, and begging and praying, to get a girl for a month! They are often got for life with half the trouble. But

to return.

Having an esteem for Mrs. Larkins, and a sincere experi

mental pity for the forlorn condition of "no girl but father," I set out at once to try if female tact and perseverance might not prove effectual in ferreting out a "help," though mere industry had not succeeded. For this purpose I made a list in my mind of those neighbors, in the first place, whose daughters sometimes condescended to be girls; and, secondly, of the few who were enabled by good luck, good management, and good pay, to keep them. If I failed in my attempts upon one class, I hoped for some new lights from the other. When the object is of such importance, it is well to string one's bow double.

In the first category stood Mrs. Lowndes, whose forlorn loghouse had never known door or window; a blanket supplying the place of the one, and the other being represented by a crevice between the logs. Lifting the sooty curtain with some timidity, I found the dame with a sort of reel before her, trying to wind some dirty, tangled yarn; and ever and anon kicking at a basket which hung suspended from the beam overhead by means of a strip of hickory bark. This basket contained a nest of rags and an indescribable baby; and in the ashes on the rough hearth played several dingy objects, which I suppose had once been babies.

"Is your daughter at home now, Mrs. Lowndes ?"

"Well yes! M'randy's to hum, but she's out now. Did you want her?"

"I came to see if she could go to Mrs. Larkins, who is very unwell, and sadly in want of help."

"Miss Larkins! why, do tell! I want to know! Is she sick agin? and is her gal gone? Why! I want to know! I thought she had Lo-i-sy Paddon! Is Lo-i-sy gone?"

"I suppose so. You will let Miranda go to Mrs. Larkins, will you?"

"Well, I donnow but I would let her go for a spell, just to 'commodate 'em. M'randy may go if she's a mind ter. She needn't live out unless she chooses. She's got a comfortable home, and no thanks to nobody. What wages do they give?" "A dollar a week."

"Eat at the table?" "Oh! certainly."

"Have Sundays?"

"Why no-I believe not the whole of Sunday-the children you know

[ocr errors]

"Oh ho!" interrupted Mrs. Lowndes, with a most disdainful

toss of the head, giving at the same time a vigorous impulse to the cradle, "if that's how it is, M'randy don't stir a step! She don't live nowhere if she can't come home Saturday night and stay till Monday morning."

I took my leave without farther parley, having often found this point the sine qua non in such negotiations.

My next effort was at a pretty-looking cottage, whose overhanging roof and neat outer arrangements, spoke of English ownership. The interior by no means corresponded with the exterior aspect, being even more bare than usual, and far from neat. The presiding power was a prodigious creature, who looked like a man in woman's clothes, and whose blazing face, ornamented here and there by great hair moles, spoke very intelligently of the beer-barrel, if of nothing more exciting. A daughter of this virago had once lived in my family, and the mother met me with an air of defiance, as if she thought I had come with an accusation. When I unfolded my errand, her abord softened a little, but she scornfully rejected the idea of her Lucy living with any more Yankees.

"You pretend to think everybody alike," said she, "but when it comes to the pint, you're a sight more uppish and saucy than the ra'al quality at home; and I'll see the whole Yankee race to

I made my exit without waiting for the conclusion of this complimentary observation; and the less reluctantly for having observed on the table the lower part of one of my silver teaspoons, the top of which had been violently wrenched off. This spoon was a well-remembered loss during Lucy's administration, and I knew that Mrs. Larkins had none to spare.

Unsuccessful thus far among the arbiters of our destiny, I thought I would stop at the house of a friend, and make some inquiries which might spare me farther rebuffs. On making my way by the garden gate to the little library where I usually saw Mrs. Stayner, I was surprised to find it silent and uninhabited. The windows were closed; a half-finished cap lay on the sofa, and a bunch of yesterday's wild-flowers upon the table. All spoke of desolation. The cradle-not exactly an appropriate adjunct of a library scene elsewhere, but quite so at the West-was gone, and the little rocking-chair was nowhere to be seen. I went on through parlor and hall, finding no sign of life, save the breakfast-table still standing with crumbs undisturbed. Where bells are not known ceremony is out of the question; so I penetrated even to the kitchen, where at length

I caught sight of the fair face of my friend. She was bending over the bread-tray, and at the same time telling nursery-stories as fast as possible, by way of coaxing her little boy of four years old to rock the cradle which contained his baby sister.

"What does this mean?"

"Oh! nothing more than usual. My Polly took herself off yesterday without a moment's warning, saying she thought she had lived out about long enough; and poor Tom, our factotum, has the ague. Mr. Stayner has gone to some place sixteen miles off, where he was told he might hear of a girl, and I am sole representative of the family energies. But you've no idea what capital bread I can make.

This looked rather discouraging for my quest; but knowing that the main point of table-companionship was the source of most of Mrs. Stayner's difficulties, I still hoped for Mrs. Larkins, who loved the closest intimacy with her "help," and always took them visiting with her. So I passed on for another effort at Mrs. Randall's, whose three daughters had sometimes been known to lay aside their dignity long enough to obtain some much-coveted article of dress. Here the mop was in full play; and Mrs. Randall, with her gown turned up, was splashing diluted mud on the walls and furniture, in the received mode of those regions, where "stained-glass windows" are made without a patent. I did not venture in, but asked from the door with my best diplomacy, whether Mrs. Randall knew of a girl. "A gal! no; who wants a gal?"

"Mrs. Larkins."

"She! why don't she get up and do her own work?" "She is too feeble."

"Law sakes! too feeble! she'd be able as anybody to thrash round, if her old man didn't spile her by waitin' on

We think Mrs. Larkin deserves small blame on this score. "But, Mrs. Randall, the poor woman is really ill and unable to do anything for her children. Couldn't you spare Rachel for a few days to help her?"

This was said in a most guarded and deprecatory tone, and with a manner carefully moulded between indifference and undue solicitude.

"My gals has got enough to do. They a'n't able to do their own work. Curline hasn't been worth the fust red cent for hard work ever since she went to school to A--."

[ocr errors]

“Oh! I did not expect to get Caroline. I understand she is going to get married.”

« PreviousContinue »