AFTERMATH

Part Second of _A Kentucky Cardinal_

by

JAMES LAKE ALLEN

Author of _The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky_, _Flute and Violin_, etc. 

1899

Dedication

This to her from one who in childhood used to stand at the windowsof her room and watch for the Cardinal among the snow-buried cedars. 

I

I was happily at work this morning among my butterbeans--a vegetable ofsolid merit and of a far greater suitableness to my palate than suchbovine watery growths as the squash and the beet. Georgiana came toher garden window and stood watching me. 

"You work those butterbeans as though you loved _them_, " she said, scornfully. 

"I do love them. I love all vines. "

"Are you cultivating them as vines or as vegetables?"

"It makes no difference to nature. "

"Do you expect me to be a vine when we are married?"

"I hope you'll not turn out a mere vegetable. How should you like tobe my Virginia-creeper?"

"And what would you be?"

"Well, what would you like? A sort of honeysuckle frame?"

"Oh, anything! Only support me and give me plenty of room to bloom. "

I do not always reply to Georgiana, though I always could if I chose. Whenever I remain silent about anything she changes the subject. 

"Did you know that Sylvia once wrote a poem on a vegetable?"

"I did not. "

"You don't speak as though you cared. "

"You must know how deeply interested I am. "

"Then why don't you ask to see the poem?"

"Was it on butterbeans?"

"The idea! Sylvia has better taste. "

"I suppose I'd better look into this poem. "

"You are not to laugh at it!"

"I shall weep. "

"No; you are not to weep. Promise. "

"What am I to promise?"

"That you will read it unmoved. "

"I do promise--solemnly, cheerfully. "

"Then come and get it. "

I went over and stood under the window. Georgiana soon returned anddropped down to me a piece of writing-paper. 

"Sylvia wrote it before she began to think about the boys. "

"It must be a very early poem. "

"It is; and this is the only copy; please don't lose it. "

"Then I think you ought to take it back at once. Let me beg of you notto risk it--" But she was gone; and I turned to my arbor and sat downto read Sylvia's poem, which I found to be inscribed to "The Potato, "and to run as follows:

 "What on this wide earth That is made or does by nature grow Is more homely yet more beautiful Than the useful Potato?

 "What would this world full of people do, Rich and poor, high and low, Were it not for this little-thought-of But very necessary Potato?

 "True, 'tis homely to look on, Nothing pretty even in its blow, But it will bear acquaintance, This useful Potato. 

 "For when it is cooked and opened It's so white and mellow, You forget it ever was homely, This useful Potato. 

 "On the whole it is a very plain plant, Makes no conspicuous show, But the internal appearance is lovely Of the unostentatious Potato. 

 "On the land or on the sea, Wherever we may go, We are always glad to welcome The sound Potato. "[*]

[*]The elder Miss Cobb was wrong in thinking this poem Sylvia's. Itwas extant at the time over the signature of another writer, whoseauthorship is not known to have been questioned. Miss Sylvia perhapscopied it out of admiration, or as a model for her own use. 

 J. L. A. 

In the afternoon I was cutting stakes at the wood-pile for mybutterbeans, and a bright idea struck me. During my engagement toGeorgiana I cannot always be darting in and out of Mrs. Cobb's frontdoor like a swallow through a barn. Neither can I talk freely toGeorgiana--with her up at the window and me down on the ground--when Iwish to breathe into her ear the things that I must utter or die. Besides, the sewing-girl whom Georgiana has engaged is nearly alwaysthere. So that as I was in the act of trimming a long slender stick, it occurred to me that I might make use of this to elevate any littlenotes that I might wish to write over the garden fence up toGeorgiana's window. 

I was greatly taken with the thought, and, dropping my hand-axe, hurried into the house and wrote a note to her at once, which Ithereupon tied to the end of the pole by a short string. But as Istarted for the garden this arrangement looked too much like catchingGeorgiana with a bait. Therefore, happening to remember, I stopped atmy tool-house, where I keep a little of everything, and took from a pega fine old specimen of a goldfinch's nest. This I fastened to the endof the pole, and hiding my note in it, now felt better satisfied. Noone but Georgiana herself would ever be able to tell what it was that Imight wish to lift up to her at any time; and in case of its being nota note, but a plum--a berry--a peach--it would be as safe as it wasunseen. This old house of a pair of goldfinches would thus become thehome of our fledgling hopes: every day a new brood of vows would takeflight across its rim into our bosoms. 

Watching my chance during the afternoon, when the sewing-girl was notthere, I rushed over and pushed the stick up to the window. 

"Georgiana, " I called out, "feel in the nest!"

She hurried to the window with her sewing in her arms. The nest swayedto and fro on a level with her nose. 

"What is it?" she cried, drawing back with extreme distaste. 

"You feel in it!" I repeated. 

"I don't wish to feel in it, " she said. "Take it away!"

"There's a young dove in it, " I persisted--"a young cooer. "

"I don't wish any young cooers, " she said, with a grimace. 

Seeing that she was not of my mind, I added, pleadingly; "It's a notefrom me, Georgiana! This is going to be our little privatepost-office!" Georgiana sank back into her chair. She reappeared withthe flush of apple-blossoms and her lashes wet with tears of laughter. But I do not think that she looked at me unkindly. "Our little privatepost-office, " I persisted, confidingly. 

"How many more little private things are we going to have?" sheinquired, plaintively. 

"I can't wait here forever, " I said. "This is growing weather; I mightsprout. "

"A dry stick will not, " said Georgiana, simply, and went back to hersewing. 

I took the hint, and propped the pole against the house under thewindow. Later, when I took it down, my note was gone. 

I have set the pole under Georgiana's window several times within thelast two or three days, It looks like a little dip-net, high and dry inthe air; but so far as I can see with my unaided eye, it has caughtnothing so large as a gnat. It has attracted no end of attention fromthe birds of the neighborhood, however, who never saw a goldfinch'snest swung to the end of a leafless pole and placed where it could beso exactly reached by the human hand. In particular it has fallenunder the notice of a pair of wrens, which are like women, in that theyusually have some secret business behind their curiosity. The businessin this case is the matter of their own nest, which they have locatedin a broken horse-collar in my saddle-house. At such seasons they arealert for appropriating building materials that may have been fetchedto hand by other birds; and they have already abstracted a piece ofcandle-wick from the bottom of my post-office. 

Georgiana has been chilly towards me for two days, and I think is doingher best not to freeze up altogether. I have racked my brain to knowwhy; but I fear that my brain is not of the sort to discover what isthe matter with a woman when nothing really is the matter. Moreover, as I am now engaged to Georgiana, I have thought it better that sheshould begin to bring her explanations to me--the steady sun that willmelt all her uncertain icicles. 

At last this morning she remarked, but very carelessly, "You didn'tanswer my note. "

"What note, Georgiana?" I asked, thunderstruck. 

She gave me such a look. 

"Didn't you get the note I put into that--into that--" Her face grewpink with vexation and disgust. 

"Did you put a note into the--into the--" I could not have spoken theword just then. 

I retired to my arbor, where I sat for half an hour with my head in myhands. What could have become of Georgiana's note? A hand might havefilched it; unlikely. A gust of wind have whisked it out; impossible. I debated and rejected every hypothesis to the last one. Acting uponthis, I walked straight to the saddle-house, and in a dark cornerpeered at the nest of the wrens. A speck of white paper was visibleamong the sticks and shavings. I tore the nest out and shook it topieces. How those wrens did rage! The note was so torn and muddedthat I could not read it. But suppose a jay had carried it to the highcrotch of some locust! I ran joyfully back to the window. 

"I've found it, Georgiana!" I called out. 

She appeared, looking relieved, but not exactly forgiving. 

"Where!"

My tongue froze to the roof of my mouth. 

"Where did you find it?" she repeated, imperiously. 

"What do you want to know for?" I said, savagely. 

"Let me see it!" she demanded. 

My clasp on it suddenly tightened. 

"Let me see it!" she repeated, with genuine fire. 

"What do you want to see it for?" I said. 

She turned away. 

"Here it is, " I said, and held it up. 

She looked at it a long time, and her brows arched. 

"Did the pigs get it?"

"The wrens. It was merely a change of post-office. "

"I'd as well write the next one to them, " she said, "since they get theletters. "

Georgiana was well aware that she slipped the note into the nest whenthey were looking and I was not; but women--_all_ women--now and thenhold a man responsible for what they have done themselves. Sylvia, forinstance. She grew peevish with me the other day because my gardenfailed to furnish the particular flowers that would have assuaged herwhim. And yet for days Sylvia has been helping herself with such lackof stint that the poor clipped and mangled bushes look at me as I passsympathetically by them, and say, "If you don't keep her away, we'd aswell be weeds!"

The truth is that Sylvia's rampant session in school, involving thepassage of the Greatest Common Divisor--far more dreadful than thepassage of the Beresina--her blue rosettes at the recent Commencement, and the prospect of a long vacation, together with further miscellanyappertaining to her age and sex, have strung the chords of hersentimental being up to the highest pitch. Feeling herself to benaturally a good instrument and now perfectly in tune, Sylvia requiresthat she shall be continually played upon--if not by one person, thenby another. Nature overloads a tendency in order to make it carrystraight along its course against the interference of other tendencies;and she will sometimes provide a girl with a great many young men atthe start, in order that she may be sure of one husband in the end. The precautionary swarm in Sylvia's case seems multitudinous enough tosupply her with successive husbands to the end of her days and in theteeth of all known estimates of mortality. How unlike Georgiana!

I think of Georgiana as the single peach on a tree in a season whenthey are rarest. Not a very large peach, and scarcely yet yielding ablush to the sun, although its long summer heat is on the wane; growinghigh in the air at the end of a bough and clustered about by itsshining leaves. But what beauty, purity, freshness! You must hunt tofind it and climb to reach it; but when you get it, you get itall--there is not a trace left for another. But Sylvia! I am afraidSylvia is like a big bunch of grapes that hangs low above a publicpathway: each passer-by reaches up and takes a grape. 

I caught some one taking a grape the other evening--a sort of greengrape. Sylvia has been sending bouquets to the gosling who was herescort on the evening of her Commencement--him of the duck trousers andwebbed feet. On one occasion I have observed her walking along theborders of my garden in his company and have overheard her telling himthat _he_ could come in and get flowers whenever he wished. I wish Imight catch him once. 

To cap the climax, after twilight on the evening in question, Istrolled out to my arbor for a quiet hour with thoughts of Georgiana. Whom should I surprise in there but Sylvia and the gosling! deep in theshadow of the vines. He had his arm around her and was kissing her. 

"Upon my honor!" I said; and striding over to him I thrust my handunder his coattails, gripped him by the seat of his ducks, dragged himhead downward to the front fence and dropped him out into the street. 

"Let me catch _you_ in here kissing anybody again!" I said. 

He had bit me viciously on one of my calves--which are sizable--as Ihad dragged him along; so that, I had been forced to stoop down andtwist him loose by screwing the end of his spongy nose. I met him onthe street early the next morning, and it wore the hue of a wild plumin its ripeness. I tapped it. 

"Only three persons know of your misbehavior last night, " I said. "Ifyou ever breathe it to a soul that you soiled that child by your touch, the next time I get hold of you it will not be your nose: it will beyour neck!"

My mortification at Sylvia's laxness was so keen that I should haveforborne returning to the arbor had I not felt assured that she musthave escaped to the house through modesty and sheer shame. But she hadnot budged. 

"I blush for you, Sylvia!" I exclaimed. "I know all about that fellow!He shouldn't kiss--my old cat!"

"I don't see what _you_ have to do with it!" said Sylvia, placidly. "And I have waited to tell you that I hope you will never interrupt meagain when I am engaged in entertaining a young gentleman. "

"Sylvia, my dear child!" I said, gravely, sitting down beside her. "How old are you?"

"I am of the proper age to manage my own affairs, " said Sylvia, "withthe assistance of my immediate family. "

"Well, I don't think you are, " I replied. "And since your brother isat West Point, there is one thing that I am going to take the libertyof telling you, which the other members of your family may not fullyunderstand. If you were younger, Sylvia, you might do a good deal ofthis and not be hurt by it; or you might not be hurt by it if you werea good deal older; but at your age it is terrible; in time it willaffect your character. "

"How old must I be?" said Sylvia, wickedly. 

"Well, in your case, " I replied, warmly, a little nettled by her tone, "you'd better abstain altogether. "

"And in your case?" said Sylvia. 

"You never mind my case!" I retorted. 

"But I do mind it when I suffer by it, " said Sylvia. "I do mind it ifit's going to affect my character!"

"You know very well, Sylvia, " I replied, "that I never kissed you butthree times, and then as a brother. "

"I do not wish any one but my brother to kiss me in that way, " saidSylvia, with a pout of contempt. 

It seemed to me that this was a fitting time to guide Sylvia's powersof discrimination as to the way she should act with indifferentmen--and as to the way that different men would try to act with her. 

I had been talking to her in a low tone I do not know how long. Herill-nature had quickly vanished; she was, in her way, provoking, charming. I was sitting close to her. The moonlight played upon herdaring, wilful face through the leaves of the grape-vines. It wasunpremeditated; my nature was, most probably, unstrung at the instantby ungratified longings for Georgiana; but suddenly I bent down andkissed her. 

Instantly both Sylvia and I started from the seat. How long Georgianahad been standing in the entrance to the arbor I do not know. She maythat instant have come. But there she was, dressed in white--pure, majestic, with the moon shining behind her, and shedding about her theradiance of a heavenly veil. 

"Come, Sylvia, " she said, with perfect sweetness; and, bidding megood-night with the same gentlewoman's calm, she placed her arm aboutthe child's waist, and the two sisters passed slowly and silently outof my garden. 

At that moment, if I could have squeezed myself into the littlescreech-owl perched in a corner of the arbor, I would gladly have creptinto the hollow of an oak and closed my eyes. Still, how was I toforesee what I should do? A man's conversation may be his own; hisconduct may vibrate with the extinct movements of his ancestors. 

Georgiana's behavior then was merely the forerunner of larger marvels. For next morning I wrote a futile drastic treatise on Woman's inabilityto understand Man and Man's inability to understand Himself, and set itunder her window. It made such a roll of paper that the goldfinch'snest looked as though it were distent with a sort of misshapen ostrichegg. All day I waited with a heart as silent as a great clock rundown; my system of philosophy swung dead in the air. To my torturedvision as I eyed it secretly from my porch, it took on the semblance ofone of Sylvia's poetical potatoes, and I found myself urging in itsbehalf Sylvia's fondest epithets: "how homely, yet how beautiful, ""little thought of, but very necessary, " "unostentatious, but of lovelyinternal appearance. "

Towards sunset I took it sadly down. On top of the nest layGeorgiana's old scarlet emery-bag stuck full of her needles! She haddivined what all the writing meant and would not have it. Instead shesent me this emblem not only of her forgiveness but of her surrender. When a man expects a woman to scold him and she does not, he eithergets to be a little afraid of her morally or he wants to take her inhis arms. Henceforth, if Georgiana were removed to another planet, Iwould rather worship her there simply as my evening or morning starthan coexist with any earthly woman. One thought besets me: did sherealize that perhaps she herself was the cause of my misdemeanors withSylvia? Has she the penetration to discover that when a woman isengaged to a man she cannot deny him all things except at her own peril?

This proof of her high-mindedness and the enchanting glimpses of herface that she has vouchsafed me since, goaded me yesterday morning todespatch a reckless note: "Will you come to the arbor for a littlewhile tonight? I have never dared ask this before, but you know how Ihave desired it. It is so much more private there. Write on the backof this paper one word, 'Yes. ' There is a pencil in the nest. "

The shutters were nearly closed, but I caught sight of the curve of ashoulder and the movement of a busy hand. As I pushed the note up Isaid:

"Read it at once. I am waiting. "

A hand came out and took in the note, then the pencil; then note andpencil were put back. On the former was written, "Yes. "

I think I must have done a dozen things in five minutes, and then Istarted aimlessly off to town. On the way I met Georgiana. 

"Good God, Georgiana!" I exclaimed. "You _here_!"

"Where else?" said she. "And why not?"

"I thought I just saw you at the window--" And then my awful soulwithin me said: "H-sh-sh-sh! Not a word of this to a human being!"

After supper last night I called old Jack and Dilsy into the garden, and led them around it, giving orders; thence to the arbor, where Ibade them sit down. 

In the year of 1805 Mr. Jefferson, as president of the PhilosophicalSociety, ordered excavations to be made at Big Bone Lick in Kentuckyfor the skeletons of extinct animals. My father, who was interested inantiquities, had had much correspondence with Mr. Jefferson in regardto earlier discoveries at that spot; and when this expedition wasundertaken he formed one of the explorers. Jack, his servant, at thattime a strapping young fellow, had been taken along as one of thenegroes who were to do the digging. 

The wonders then unearthed have always been the greenest spot in oldJack's memory; so that they have been growing larger ever since. Whenever I wish to hear him discourse with the dogmatic bluster of asage who had original information as to geological times, I set Jack totalking about the bones of the Mastodon-Maximus, the name of which hegets from me, with a puzzled shake of his head, about regularly once ayear. It is my private opinion that old Jack believes Big Bone Lick tohave been the place where the Ark settled, and these to have been thebones of animals that had been swept out by Noah on landing. 

Last night I had merely to ask him whether he credited the story of anold traveller that he had once used some ribs found there for histent-poles and a tooth for his hominy beater; whereupon Dilsy, foreseeing what was coming, excused herself on the plea of suddenrheumatism and went to bed, as I wished she should. 

The hinges on the little private gate under Georgiana's window I keeprusty; this enables me to note when any one enters my garden. By-and-by I heard the hinges softly creak, whereupon I feigned not tobelieve what Jack was telling me; whereupon he fell into an harangue ofsuch affectionate and sustained vehemence that when the hinges creakedagain I was never able to determine. Was ever such usage made beforeof an antediluvian monster?

To-day the sewing-girl thrust out spiteful faces at me several times. 

She is the one that helped Georgiana last year when she was making herwedding-clothes to marry the West Point cousin. God keep him safely inthe distance, or guide him firmly to the van of war! How does a womanfeel when she is making her wedding-clothes for the second time and foranother man? I know very well how the other man feels. Upon my urgingGeorgiana to marry me at once--nature does not recognize engagements;they are a device of civilization--she protested:

"But I must get ready! Think of the sewing!"

"Oh, bother!" I grumbled. "Where are all those clothes that you madelast year?"

How was I to suppose that Georgiana must have everything made over aspart of her feeling for me? I would not decree it otherwise; yet Iquestion whether this delicacy may not impose reciprocal obligations, and remove from my life certain elements of abiding comfort. What ifit should engender a prejudice against my own time-wornacquaintances--the familiars of my fireside? It might be justifiablesagacity in me to keep them locked up for the first year or so afterGeorgiana and I become a diune being; and, upon the whole, she shouldnever know what may have been the premarital shortcomings of mywardrobe as respects things unseen. No matter how well a bachelor mayappear dressed, there is no telling what he conceals upon his person. I feel sure that the retrospective discovery of a ravelling wouldsomehow displease Georgiana as a feature of our courtship. Nature isvery stringent here, very guarded, truly universal. Invariably theyoung men of my day grow lavish in the use of unguents when they arepreparing for natural selection; and I flatter myself that even my owngarments--in their superficial aspects at least, and during my longpursuit of Georgiana--have not been very far from somewhat slightlyingratiating. 

This pursuit is now drawing to a close. It is nearly the last of June. She has given me her word that she will marry me early in September. Two months for her to get the bridal feathers ready; two for me toprepare the nest. 

II

I have forgotten nature. I barely know that July, now nearly gone, haspassed, sifted with sweetness and ablaze with light. Time has swepton, the world run round; but I have stood motionless, abiding the hourof my marriage as a tree the season of its leaves. For all that itlooks so calm, within goes on a tremendous surging of sap against itsmoments of efflorescence. 

After which I pray that, not as a tree, but as a man, I may have alittle peace. When Georgiana confessed her love, I had supposed thisconfession to mark the end of her elusiveness. When later on shepresented to me the symbol of a heart pierced with needles, I had takenit for granted that thenceforth she would settle down into somethinglike a state of prenuptial domestication, growing less like a swift andmore like a hen. But there is nothing gallinaceous about my Georgiana. I took possession of her vow and the emery-ball, not of her; theprivilege was merely given to plant my flag-staff on the uncertain edgeof an unknown land. In war it sometimes becomes necessary to devastatea whole country in order to control a single point: I should be pleasedto learn what portion of the earth's surface I am required to subdueere I shall hold one little citadel. 

As for me, Georgiana requires that I shall be a good deal like an oldrock jutting out of the quiet earth: never ruffled, never changingeither on the surface or at heart, bearing whatever falls upon me, beit frost or sun, and warranted to waste away only by a sort ofimpersonal disintegration at the rate of half an inch to the thousandyears. Meantime she exacts for herself the privilege of dwelling nearas the delighted cave of the winds. The part of wisdom in me then isnot to heed each sallying gust, but to capture the cave and drive thewinds away. 

For I know in whom I have believed; I know that this myriad caprice isbut the deepening of excitement on the verge of captivity; I know thaton ahead lie the regions of perpetual calm--my Islands of the Blest. 

Georgiana does not play upon the pianoforte; or, as Mrs. Walters woulddeclare, she does not perform upon the instrument. Sylvia does; sheperforms, she executes. There are times when she will execute a piececalled "The Last Hope" until the neighbors are filled with despair andready to stretch their heads on the block to any more mercifulexecutioner. Nor does Georgiana sing to company in the parlor. Thatis Sylvia's gift; and upon the whole it was this unmitigated practicein the bosom--and in the ears--of her family that enabled Sylvia toshine with such vocal effulgence in the procession on the last Fourthof July and devote a pair of unflagging lungs to the service of hercountry. 

But Georgiana I have never known to sing except at her sewing andalone, as the way of women often is. During a walk across the summerfields my foot has sometimes paused at the brink of a silvery runlet, and I have followed it backward in search of the spring. It may leadto the edge of a dark wood; thence inward deeper and deeper;disappearing at last in a nook of coolness and shadow, green leaves andmystery. The overheard rill of Georgiana's voice issues from innerdepths of being that no human soul has ever visited, or perhaps willever visit. What would I not give to thread my way, bidden and alone, to that far region of uncaptured loveliness?

Of late some of the overhead lullabies have touched me inexpressibly. They beat upon my ear like the musical reveries of future motherhood--they betoken in Georgiana's maidenhood the dreaming unrest of thematernal. 

One morning not long ago, with a sort of pitiful gayety, her song ranin the wise of saying how we should gather our rose-buds while we may. The warning could not have been addressed to me; I shall gather minewhile I may--the unrifled rose of Georgiana's life, body and spirit. 

Naturally she and I have avoided the subject of the Cardinal. But tothe tragedy of his death was joined one circumstance of such coarse andbrutal unconcern that it had left me not only remorseful but resentful. As we sat together the other evening, after one of those silences thatfall unregarded between us, I could no longer forbear to face anunderstanding. 

"Georgiana, " I said, "do you know what became of the redbird?"

Unwittingly the color of reproach must have lain upon my words, for sheanswered quickly with yet more in hers, "I had it buried!"

It was my turn to be surprised. 

"Are you sure?"

"I am sure. I told them where to bury it; I showed them the veryspot--under the cedar. They told me they had. Why?"

I thought it better that she should learn the truth. 

"You know we can't trust our negroes. They disobeyed you. They liedto you; they never buried it. They threw it on the ash-pile. The pigstore it to pieces; I saw them; they were rooting at it and tearing itto pieces. "

She had clasped her hands, and turned towards me in acute distress. After a while, with her face aside, she said, slowly, "And you have believed that I knew of this--that I permitted it?"

"I have believed nothing. I have waited to understand. "

A few minutes later she said, as if to herself, "Many a person would have been only too glad to believe it, and toblame me. " Then folding her hands over one of mine, she said, withtears in her eyes:

"Promise me--promise me, Adam, until we are married, and--yes, _after_we are married--as long as I live, that you will never believe anythingof me until you _know_ that it is true!"

"I do promise, dear, dear, dearest one-!" I cried, trying to draw herto me, but she would not permit it. "And you?"

"I shall never misunderstand, " she replied, as with a flash of whiteinward light. "I know that you can never do anything that will make methink the less of you. "

Since the sad, sad day on which I caused the death of the Cardinal, Ihave paid little heed to the birds. The subject has been a sore one. Besides, my whole life is gradually changing under the influence ofGeorgiana, who draws me farther and farther away from nature, andnearer and nearer to my own kind. 

When, two years ago, she moved into this part of the State, I dwelt onthe outskirts of the town and of humanity. On the side of them lay thesour land of my prose; the country, nature, rolled away on the other asthe sweet deep ocean of my poetry. I called my neighbors mymanifestations of prose; my doings with the townspeople, prosepassages. The manifestations and passages scarce made a scrimp volume. There was Jacob, who lived on his symptoms and died without any; therewas and there is Mrs. Walters--may she last to the age of the eagle. In town, a couple of prose items of cheap quality: an old preacher whowas willing to save my soul while my strawberries were ripe, and an olddoctor who cared to save my body so long as he could eat my pears--withothers interested severally in my asparagus, my rhubarb, my lilies, andsweet-peas. Always not forgetting a few inestimably wholesome, cheery, noble souls, who sought me out on the edge of human life rather thansucceeded in drawing me over the edge towards the centre. 

But this Georgiana has been doing--long without my knowing it. I havebecome less a woodsman, more a civilian. Unless she relents, it mayend in my ceasing to be a lover of birds, and running for theLegislature. Seeing me so much on the streets, one of myfellow-townsmen declared the other day that if I would consent to comeout of the canebrakes for good they would make me postmaster. 

It has fallen awkwardly for me that this enforced transformation in mytastes and habits should coincide with the season of my love-making;and it is well that Georgiana does not demand in me the capering orstrutting manners of those young men of my day who likewise areexerting themselves to marry. I am more like a badger than like one ofthem; and indeed I find the image of my fate and my condition in abadger-like creature close at hand. 

For the carpenter who is at work upon bridal repairs in my house hasthe fancy not uncommon among a class hereabouts to keep a tamedraccoon. He brings it with him daily, and fastens it by its chain to atree in my front yard: a rough, burly, knowing fellow, loving wildnature, but forced to acquire the tediousness of civilization; meantimeleading a desperately hampered life; wondering at his own teeth andclaws, and sorely put to it to invent a decent occupation. So am I;and as the raccoon paces everywhere after the carpenter, so do I inspirit pace everywhere after Georgiana; only his chain seems longer andmore easily to be broken. The restless beast enlivens his captivity bythe keenest scrutiny of every object within his range; I too havebusied myself with the few people that have come this way. 

First, early in the month, Georgiana's brother--down from West Point, very stately, and with his brow stern, as if for gory war. When Icalled promptly to pay my respects, as his brother-in-law to be, he wassitting on the front porch surrounded by a subdued family, Georgianaalone remaining unawed. He looked me over indifferently, as though Iwere a species of ancient earthworks not worth any more specialreconnoissance, and continued his most superior remarks to his motheron the approaching visit of three generals. 

Upon leaving I invited him to join me on the morrow in a squirrel huntwith smooth-bores, whereupon he manifested surprise that I wasacquainted with the use of fire-arms. Whereupon I remarked that Iwould sometimes hit big game if it were so close that I could not missit, and further urged him to have breakfast with me at a very earlyhour in order that we might reach the woods while the squirrels were attheirs. 

Going home, I knocked at the cabin where Jack and Dilsy lay snoringside by side with the velocity of rival saw-mills, and begged Dilsy togive me a bite about daybreak--coffee and corn-batter cakes--sayingthat I could get breakfast when I returned. I shared this scant bitewith my young soldier--to Dilsy's abject mortification, I not havingtold her of his coming. Then we set off at a brisk pace towards agreat forest south of the town some five miles away, where thesquirrels had appeared and were doing great damage, being the last of acountless plague of them that overran northern and central Kentucky ayear ago. 

On the way I dragged him through several canebrakes, a thicket ofblackberry; kept him out all day; said not a word about dinner; avoidedevery spot where he could have gotten a swallow of water; not once satdown to rest; towards the middle of the afternoon told him I desired totake enough squirrels home to make Jack a squirrel-skin overcoat, andasked him to carry while I killed; loaded him with squirrels, neck, shoulders, breast, back, and loins, till as he moved he tottered andswayed like a squirrel pyramid; about sundown challenged him to what hehad not yet had, some crack shooting, which in that light requiresyoung eyesight, and barked the squirrel for him four times; later stillsnuffed the candle for him, having brought one along for the purpose;and then, with my step fresh, led him swiftly home. 

He has the blood of Georgiana in him, and stood it like a man. But hewas nearly dead. He has saluted me since as though I were a murderousgarrison intrenched on the Heights of Abraham. 

Then the three generals of the United States army descended in abody--or in three bodies; and the truth is that their three bodiesscarce held them, they were in such a state of flesh when they reachedKentucky, and of being perpetually overfed while they remained. Theobject of their joint visit under a recent act of Congress was tolocate a military asylum for disabled soldiers; and had they stayedmuch longer they must have had themselves admitted to their owninstitution as foremost of the disabled. Having spent some time at theLower Blue Lick Springs, the proposed site--where this summer are overfive hundred guests of our finest Southern society--they afterwardswere drawn around with immense solidity towards Louisville, Frankfort, Maysville, Paris, and Lexington, being everywhere received with suchhonors and provisions that these great guns were in danger of becomingspiked forever in both barrel and tube. 

Upon reaching this town one of them detached himself from the heatedrolling mass and accepted the invitation of young Cobb--who had formedthe acquaintance at West Point--to make a visit in his home. He hadnot been there many days before he manoeuvred to establish a privatemilitary retreat for himself in the affections of Mrs. Cobb. So thathis presence became a profanation to Georgiana, whose reverence for herheroic father burns like an altar of sacred fire, and whose naturebecame rent in twain between her mother's suitor and her brother'sguest. 

A most pestiferous variety of caterpillar has infested the tops of mycherry-trees this summer, and during the general's encampment near Mrs. Cobb I happened several times to be mounted on my step-ladder, busywith my pruning-shears, when he was decoying her around hergarden--just over the fence--buckled in to suffocation, and with hislong epaulettes golden in the sun like tassels of the corn. I wasengaged in exterminating this insect on the last day of his sojourn. They were passing almost beneath me on the other side; he had beentalking; I heard her brief reply, in a voice low and full of dignity, "I have been married, sir!"

"Mother of Georgiana!" I cried, within myself. But had she everthought of taking a second husband she must have seen through "OldDrumbeater, " as Sylvia called him. There were times when theirbreakfast would be late--for the sake of letting his chicken be broiledin slow perfection or his rolls or waffles come to a faultless brown;and I, being at work near the garden fence, would hear him tramping upand down the walk on the other side and swearing at a family that hadsuch irregular meals. The camel, a lean beast, requires anextraordinary supply of food, which it proceeds to store away in itshump as nourishment to be drawn upon while it is crossing the desert. There may be no long campaigning before the general; but if there wereand rations were short, why could he not live upon his own back? It isof a thickness, a roundness, and an impenetrability that would havejustified Jackson in using him as a cotton-bale at the battle of NewOrleans. 

Thus in my little corner of the world we have all been at the samebusiness of love, and I wonder whether the corner be not the worlditself: Mrs. Cobb and the general, Georgiana and I the sewing-girl andthe carpenter; for I had forgotten to note how quickly these two havefound out that they want each other. My arbor is at his service, if hewishes it; and Jack shall keep silent about the mastodon. 

It is true that from this sentimental enumeration I have omitted thename of Mrs. Walters; but there is a secret here which not evenGeorgiana herself will ever get from me. Mrs. Walters came to thistown twenty years ago from the region of Bowling Green. Some yearsafterwards I made a trip into that part of the State to hear themocking-bird--for it fills those more southern groves, but never visitsours; and while there I stepped by accident on this discovery: _Therenever was any Mr. Walters_. It is her maiden name. But as I see thefreedom of her life and reflect upon the things that a widow can do andan old maid cannot--with her own sex and with mine--I commend herwisdom and leave her at peace. Indeed I have gone so far, when she hasasked for my sympathy, as to lament with her Mr. Walters's death. After all, what great difference is there between her weeping for himbecause he is no more, and her weeping for him because he never was?After which she freshens herself up with another handkerchief, a littleFlorida water, and a touch of May roses from the apothecary's. 

And I have omitted the name of Sylvia; but then Sylvia's name, likethat of Lot's wife, can never be used as one of a class, and sheherself must always be spoken of alone. However, if Sylvia had beenLot's wife she would not have turned to a pillar of salt, she wouldmost probably have become a geyser. 

I don't know why, but she went on a visit to Henderson after thatevening in the arbor. I suspect the governing power of Georgiana'swisdom to have been put forth here, for within a few days I receivedfrom Sylvia a letter which she asked me not to show to Georgiana, andin which she invited me to correspond with her secretly. The letterwas of a singularly adhesive quality as to the emotions. Throughoutshe referred to herself as "the exile, " although it was plain that shewrote in the highest spirits; and in concluding she openly chargedGeorgiana with having given her a black eye--a most unspeakable phrase, surely picked up in the school-room. As a return for the black eye, Sylvia said that she had composed a poem to herself, a copy of whichshe enclosed. 

I quote Sylvia's commemorative verses upon her wrongs and herbanishment. They show features of metrical excess, and can scarcelyclaim to reflect the polish of her calmer art; but they are of value tome as proving that whatever the rebuke Georgiana may have given, it hadrebounded from that elastic spirit. 

 LINES TO MYSELF

 Oh! she was a lovely girl, So pretty and so fair, With gentle, love-lit _eyes_, And wavy, dark brown hair. 

 I loved the gentle girl, But, oh! I heaved a sigh When first she told me she could see Out of only _one_ eye. 

 But soon I thought within myself I'd better save my tear and sigh _To bestow upon an older person I know Who has more than one eye_. 

 She is brave and intelligent Too. She is witty and wise. She'll accomplish more now than _another person_ I know Who has _two_ eyes. 

 Ah, you need not pity _her_! _She_ needs not your tear and sigh. She'll make good use, I tell you, Of her _one_ remaining eye. 

 In the home where we are hastening, In our eternal Home on High, See that _you_ be not rivalled By the girl with only _one_ eye. [*]

[*]Miss Sylvia could not have been speaking seriously when she wrotethat she had "composed" this poem. It is known to be the work ofanother hand, though Sylvia certainly tampered with the original andproduced a version of her own. J. L. A. 

Having thus dealt a thrust at Georgiana, Sylvia seems to have turned inthe spirit of revenge upon her mother; and when she came home some daysago she brought with her a distant cousin of her own age--a boy, enormously fat--whom she soon began to decoy around the garden as hermother had been decoyed by the general. Further to satirize thesimilarity of lovers, she one day pinned upon his shoulders rosettes ofyellow ribbon. 

Sylvia has now passed from Scott to Moore; and several times lately shehas made herself heard in the garden with recitations to the fat boy onthe subject of Peris weeping before the gates of Paradise, or warblingelegies under the green sea in regard to Araby's daughter. There is areal aptness in the latter reference; for this boy's true place innature is the deep seas of the polar regions, where animals are coatedwith thick tissues of blubber. If Sylvia ever harpoons him, as sheseems seriously bent on doing, she will have to drive her weapon indeep. 

Yesterday she sprang across to me with her hair flying and an openletter in her hand. 

"Oh, read it!" she cried, her face kindling with glory. 

It turned out to be a letter from the great Mr. Prentice, of theLouisville _Journal_ accepting a poem she had lately sent him, andassigning her a fixed place among his vast and twinkling galaxy ofKentucky poetesses. The title of the poem was, "My Lover Kneels toNone but God. "

"I infer from this, " I said, gravely, "that your lover is a Kentuckian. "

"He is, " cried Sylvia. "Oh, his peerless, haughty pride!"

"Well, I congratulate you, Sylvia, " I continued, mildly, "upon havingsuch an editor and such a lover; but I really think that your loverought to kneel a little to Mr. Prentice on this one occasion. "

"Never!" cried Sylvia. "I would spurn him as chaff!"

"Some day when you meet Mr. Prentice, Sylvia, " I continued, further, "you will want to be very nice to him, and you might give him somethingnew to parse. "

Sylvia studied me dubiously; the subject is not one that reassures her. 

"Because the other day I heard a very great friend of Mr. Prentice'ssay of him that when he was fifteen he could parse every sentence inVirgil and Homer. And if he could do that then, think what he must heable to do now, and what a pleasure it must afford him!"

I would not imbitter Sylvia's joy by intimating that perhaps Mr. Prentice's studious regard for much of the poetry that he published wasbased upon the fact that he could not parse it. 

There has been the most terrible trouble with the raccoon. 

This morning the carpenter tied him in my yard as usual; but some timeduring the forenoon, in a fit of rage at his confinement, he pulled thecollar over his head and was gone. Whither and how long no one knew;but it seems that at last, by dint of fences and trees, he attained tothe unapproachable distinction of standing on the comb of Mrs. Walters's house--poor Mrs. Walters, who has always held him in suchdeadly fear! she would as soon have had him on the comb of her head. Advancing along the roof, he mounted the chimney. Glancing down this, he perhaps reached the conclusion that it was more like nature and ahollow tree than anything that civilization had yet been able toproduce, and he proceeded to descend to the ground again by so dark andfriendly a passage. His progress was stopped by a bundle of straw atthe bottom, which he quickly tore away, and having emerged from a groveof asparagus in the fireplace, he found himself not on the earth, butin Mrs. Walters's bedroom. In what ways he now vented his ill-humor isnot clear; but at last he climbed to the bed, white as no fuller couldwhite it, and he dripping with soot. Here the ground beneath him wasof such a suspicious and unreasonable softness that he apparentlyresolved to dig a hole and see what was the matter. In the course ofhis excavation he reached Mrs. Walters's feather-bed, upon which hemust have fallen with fresh violence, tooth and nail, in the idea thatso many feathers could not possibly mean feathers only. 

It was about this time that Mrs. Walters returned from town, havingleft every window closed and every door locked, as is her custom. Shethrew open her door and started in, but paused, being greeted by asnow-storm of goose feathers that filled the air and now driftedoutward. 

"Why, what on earth is the matter?" she exclaimed, peering in, blankwith bewilderment. Then her eyes caught sight of what had once beenher bed. Sitting up in it was the raccoon, his long black jaws beardedwith down, his head and ears stuck about with feathers, and his eyesblazing green with defiance. 

She slammed and locked the door. 

"Run for the sheriff!" she cried, in terror, to the boy who had broughther market basket; and she followed him as he fled. 

"What is it, Mrs. Walters?" asked the sheriff, sternly, meeting her andbringing the handcuffs. 

"There's somebody in my bed!" she cried, wringing her hands. "Ibelieve it's the devil. "

"It's my 'coon, " said the carpenter, laughing; for by this time we wereall gathered together. 

"What a dear 'coon!" said the sewing-girl. 

"Oh, Mrs. Walters! You are like Little Red Riding-hood!" said Sylvia. 

"I can't arrest a 'coon, madam!" exclaimed the sheriff, red in the neckat being made ridiculous. 

"Then arrest the carpenter!" cried poor, unhappy, excited Mrs. Walters, bursting into tears and hiding her face on Georgiana's shoulder. 

And among us all Georgiana was the only comforter. She laid aside herown work for that day, spent the rest of it as Samaritan to herdesperately wounded neighbor, and at nightfall, over the bed, nowpeaceful and snowy once more, she spread a marvellous priceless quiltthat she had long been making to exhibit at the approaching World'sFair in New York. 

"Georgiana, " I said, as I walked home with her at bedtime, "it seems tome that things happen in order to show you off. "

"Only think!" Georgiana replied; "she will never get into bed againwithout a shiver and a glance at the chimney. I begrudge her the quiltfor one reason: it has a piece of one of your old satin waistcoats init. "

"Did she tell you that she had had those bedclothes ever since hermarriage?"

"Yes; but I have always felt that she couldn't have been married verylong. "

"How long should you think?"

"Oh, well--about a minute. "

"And yet she certainly has the clearest possible idea of Mr. Walters. I imagine that very few women ever come to know their husbands asperfectly as Mrs. Walters knew hers. "

"Or perhaps wish to. "

III

The end of August--the night before my marriage. 

Several earthquakes have lately been felt in this part of the globe. Coming events cast their shocks before. 

The news of it certainly came like the shock of an earthquake to manypeople of the town, who know perfectly well that no woman will allowthe fruit and flowers to be carried off a place as a man will. Thesagacious old soul who visits me yearly for young pie-plant actuallyhurried out and begged for a basketful of the roots at once, thustaking time--and the rhubarb--by the forelock. And the old epicureanharpy whose passion is asparagus, having accosted me gruffly on thestreet with an inquiry as to the truth of my engagement and beenquietly assured, how true it was, informed me to my face that any mansituated as happily as I am was an infernal fool to entangle himselfwith a wife, and bade me a curt and everlasting good-morning on thespot. Yet every day the theme of this old troubadour's talk around thehotels is female entanglements--mendacious, unwifely, and for himunavailing. 

Through divers channels some of my fellow-creatures--specimens of themost dreadful prose--have let me know that upon marrying I shallforfeit their usurious regard. As to them, I shall relapse into theprivacy of an orchard that has been plucked of its fruit. But mywonderment has grown on the other hand at the number of those to whom, as the significant unit of a family instead of a bachelor zero, I havenow acquired a sterling mercantile valuation. Upon the whole, I mayfairly compute that my relation to the human race has been totallychanged by the little I may cease to give away and by the less that Ishall need to buy. 

And Mrs. Walters! Although I prefer to think of Mrs. Walters as asinger, owing to her unaccountable powers of reminiscentialvocalization, I have upon occasion classified her among the waders; andcertainly, upon the day when my engagement to Georgiana transpired, shewaded not only all around the town but all over it, sustained by abuoyancy of spirit that enabled her to keep her head above water indepths where her feet no longer touched the bottom. 

It was the crowning triumph of this vacant soul's life to boast thatshe had made this match; and for the sake of giving her so muchhappiness, I think I should have been willing to marry Georgianawhether I loved her or not. 

So we are all happy: Sylvia, who thus enters upon a family right to myflowers and to the distinction of being the only Miss Cobb; Dilsy, who, while gathering vegetables about the garden, long ago began to receivelittle bundles of quilt pieces thrown down to her with a smile and theright word from the window above; and Jack, who is to drive us on ourbridal-trip to the Blue Lick Springs, where he hopes to renew hisscientific studies upon the maxillary bones. I have hesitated betweenBlue Lick and Mud Lick, though to a man in my condition there can be nogreat difference between blue and mud. And I had thought of theHarrodsburg Springs, but the negro musicians there were lately hurriedoff to Canada by the underground railway, out of which fact has grown alawsuit for damages between the proprietor and his abolitionist guest. 

A few weeks ago I intrusted a secret to Georgiana. I told her thatbefore she condescended to shine upon this part of the world--now theheavenlier part--I had been engaged upon certain researches anddiscoveries relating to Kentucky birds, especially to the Kentuckywarbler. I admitted that these studies had been wretchedly put asideunder the more pressing necessity of fixing the attention of all mypowers, ornithological and other, upon her garden window. But as Iplaced specimens of my notes and drawings in her hand, I remarkedgravely that after our marriage I should be ready to push my workforward without delay. 

All this was meant to give her a delightful surprise; and indeed sheexamined the evidences of my undertaking with devouring and triumphanteagerness. But what was my amazement when she handed them back insilence, and with a face as white as though as fragrant as a rose. 

"I have distressed you, Georgiana!" I cried, "and my only thought hadbeen to give you pleasure. I am always doing something wrong!"

She closed her eyes and passed her fingers searchingly across her brow, as we sometimes instinctively try to brush away our cares. Then shesat looking down rather pitifully at her palms, as they lay in her lap. 

"You have shared your secret with me, " she said, solemnly, at length. "I'll share mine with yon. It is the only fear that I have ever feltregarding our future. It has never left me; and what you have justshown me fills me with terror. "

I sat aghast. 

"I am not deceived, " she continued; "you have not forgotten nature. Itdraws you more powerfully than anything else in the world. Wheneveryou speak of it, you say the right thing, you find the right word, youget the right meaning. With nature alone you are perfectly natural. Towards society you show your shabby, awkward, trivial, uncomfortableside. But these drawings, these notes--there lies your power, yourgift, your home. You truly belong to the woodsmen. "

Never used to study myself, I listened, to this as to fresh talk abouta stranger. 

"Do you not foresee what will happen?" she went on, with emotion. "After we have been married a while you will begin to wander off--atfirst for part of a day, then for a day, then for a day and a night, then for days and nights together. That was the way with Audubon, thatwas the way with Wilson, that is the way with Thoreau, that will be theway with all whom nature draws as it draws you. And, me--think ofme--at home! A woman not able to go with you! Not able to wade thecreeks and swim the rivers! Not able to sleep out in the brown leaves, to endure the rain, the cold, the travel! And, so I shall never beable to fill your life with mine as you fill mine with yours. As timepasses, I shall fill it less and less. Every spring nature will bejust as young to you; I shall be always older. The water you loveripples, never wrinkles. I shall cease rippling and begin wrinkling. No matter what happens, each summer the birds get fresh feathers; onlythink how my old ones will never drop out. I shall want you to go onwith your work. If I am to be your wife, I must be wings to you. Butthink of compelling me to furnish you the wings with which to leave me!What is a little book on Kentucky birds in comparison with myhappiness!"

She was so deeply moved that my one desire was to uproot her fears onthe spot. 

"Then there shall be no little book on Kentucky birds!" I cried. "I'llthrow these things into the fire as soon as I go home. Only say whatyou wish me to be, Georgiana, " I continued, laughing, "and I'll beit--if it's the town pump. "

"Then if I could only be the town well, " she said, with a poor littleeffort to make a heavy heart all at once go merrily again. 

Bent on making it go merrily as long as I shall live, the following dayI called out to her at the window:

"Georgiana, I'm improving. I'm getting along. "

"What do you mean?" she asked. 

"Well, in town this morning they chose me as one of the judges ofvegetables at the fair next month. I said, 'Gentlemen, I expect to bemarried before that time, and I do not intend to be separated from mywife. Will she have the privilege of accompanying me among thesecompeting vegetables? And last month they made me director of aturnpike company--I suppose because it runs through my farm. To-day ata meeting of the directors I said, 'Gentlemen, how far is this turnpiketo run? I will direct it to the end of my farm and not a step farther. I do not wish to be separated from my wife. '"

Georgiana has teased me a good deal in my life. It is well to let awoman taste of the tree of knowledge whose fruit she is fond ofdispensing. 

"You'd better be careful!" she said, archly. 

"Remember, I haven't married you yet. "

"I _am_ careful, " I replied. "I haven't married _you_ yet, cither! Myidea, Georgiana, " I continued, "is to plant a grove and raise cocoons. That would gratify my love of nature and your fancy for silk dresses. I could have my silk woven and spun in our manufactory at Newport, Kentucky; and you know that we couldn't possibly lose each other amongthe mulberry-trees. "

"You'd better take care!" she repeated. "Do you expect to talk to mein this style after we are married?"

"That will all depend upon how you talk to me, " I answered. "But Ihave always understood married life to be the season when the wormbegins to turn. "

Despite my levity, I have been secretly stricken with remorse at themonstrous selfishness that lay coiled like a canker in my words. I wasreally no better than those men who say to their wives:

"While I was trying to win you, the work of my life was secondary--youwere everything. Now that I have won you, it will be everything, andyou must not stand in the way. "

But the thought is insupportable that Georgiana should not be happywith me at any cost. I divine now the reason of the effort she haslong been making to win me from nature; therefore of my own free will Ihave privately set about changing the character of my life with theidea of suiting it to some other work in which she too may be content. And thus it has come about that during the August now ended--always themonth of the year in which my nature will go its solitary way and seekits woodland peace--I have hung about the town as one who is offeredfor hire to a master whom he has never seen and for a work that hehates to do. Many of the affairs that engage the passions of myfellow-beings are to me as the gray stubble through which I walk in theSeptember fields--the rotting wastage of harvests long since gatheredin. At other times I drive myself upon their sharp and piercingconflicts as a bird is blown uselessly again and again by some toostrong a wind upon the spikes of the thorn. I hear the angry talk ofour farmers and merchants, I listen to the fiery orations of ourstatesmen and the warning sermons of our divines. (Think of a humancreature calling himself a divine. ) The troubled ebb and flow ofevents in Kentucky, the larger movements of unrest throughout the greatrepublic--these have replaced for me the old communings with naturethat were full of music and of peace. 

Evening after evening now I turn my conversations with Georgiana asgayly as I can upon some topic of the time. She is not always pleasedwith what I style my researches into civilized society. One evening inparticular our talk was long and serious, beginning in shallows andthen steering for deep waters. 

"Well, Georgiana, " I had said, "Miss Delia Webster has suddenlyreturned to her home in Vermont. "

"And who is Miss Delia Webster?" she had inquired, with unmistakableacidity. 

"Miss Delia Webster is the lady who was sentenced to the Statepenitentiary for abducting our silly old servants into Ohio. But thejury of Kentucky noblemen who returned the verdict--being married men, and long used to forgiving a woman anything--petitioned the governor topardon Miss Delia on the ground that she belongs to the sex that can dono wrong--and be punished for it. Whereupon the governor, seasoned tothe like large experience, pardoned the lady. Whereupon Miss Webster, having passed a few weeks in the penitentiary, left, as I stated, forher home in Vermont, followed by her father, who does not, however, seem to have been able to overtake her. "

"If she'd been a man, now, " suggested Georgiana. 

"If she'd been a man she would have shared the fortunes of herprincipal, the Reverend Mr. Fairbanks, who has _not_ returned to hishome in Ohio, and will not--for fifteen years. "

"Do you think it an agreeable subject of conversation?" inquiredGeorgiana. 

"Then I will change it, " I said. "The other day the editor of theSmithland _Bee_ was walking along the street with his little daughterand was shot down by a doctor. "

"Horrible!" exclaimed Georgiana. "Why?"

"Self-defence, " I answered. "And last week in the court-room in MountSterling a man was shot by his brother-in-law during the sitting ofcourt. "

"And why did _he_ kill _him_?"

"Self-defence!" I answered. "And in Versailles a man down in thestreet was assassinated with a rifle fired from the garret of a tavern. Self-defence. And in Lexington a young man shot and killed another fordrawing his handkerchief from his pocket. Self-defence!--the sense ofthe court being that whatever such an action might mean in othercivilized, countries, in Kentucky and under the circumstances--theyoung fellows were quarrelling--it naturally betokened the reaching fora revolver. Thus in Kentucky, Georgiana, and during a heateddiscussion, a man cannot blow his nose but at the risk of his life. "

"I'll see that you never carry a handkerchief, " said Georgiana. "Soremember--don't you ever reach for one!"

"And the other day in Eddysville, " I went on, "two men fought a duel bygoing to a doctor's shop and having him open a vein in the arm of each. Just before they fainted from exhaustion they made signs that theirhonor was satisfied, so the doctor tied up the veins. I see that youdon't believe it, but it's true. "

"And why did they fight a duel in that way?"

"I give it up, " I said, "unless it was in self-defence. We are a mostremarkable society of self-defenders. But if every man who fights inKentucky is merely engaged in warding off a murderous attack upon hislife, who does all the murderous attacking? You know the seal of ourcommonwealth: two gentlemen in evening dress shaking hands and with onevoice declaring, 'United we stand, divided we fall. ' So far as thetemper of our time goes, these two gentlemen might well be representedas twenty paces apart, and as calling out, 'United, we stood; divided, _you_ fall!' Killings and duels! Killings and duels! Do you think weneed these as proofs of courage? Do you suppose that the Kentuckiansof our day are braver than the pioneers? Do you suppose that anypeople ever elevated its ideal of courage in the eyes of the world byall the homicides and all the duels that it could count? There is onlyone way in which any civilized people has ever done that, there is onlyone way in which any civilized people has ever been able to impress theworld very deeply with a belief in the reality and the nobility of itsideal of courage: it is by the warlike spirit of its men in times ofwar, and by the peaceful spirit of its men in times of peace. Only, you must add this: that when those times of peace have come on, and itis no longer possible for such a people to realize its ideal of couragein arms, it is nevertheless driven to express the ideal in otherways--by monuments, arches, inscriptions, statues, literature, pictures, all in honor of those of their countrymen who lived the idealbefore the world and left it more lustrous in their dying. That is thefull reason why we know how brave a people the Greeks were--by theirpeaceful ways of honoring valor in times of peace. And that in part iswhy no nation in the world doubts the courage of the English, becausewhen the English are not fighting they are forever doing something tohonor those who have fought well. So that they never have a peace butthey turn it into preparation for the next war. 

"And that is why, as the outside world looks in upon us to-day andsifts the evidence of whether or not we are a brave people, it does notfind the proof of this in our homicides and duels, but in the spirit ofour forefathers of the Revolution, in the soldiers of the wildernessand of Indian warfare, of the war of 1812, of the war with Mexico, atCerro Gordo, at Buena Vista, at Palo Alto, at Resaca de la Palma. Wherever the Kentuckians have fought as soldiers, many or few, onwhatever battle-field, in whatsoever cause, there you may see whetherthey know what it is to be men, and whether they have an ideal ofcourage that is worth the name. 

"Then a few years ago in Frankfort twenty thousand people followed tothe grave the bodies of the men who had fallen in Mexico. The Statehas raised a monument to them, to the soldiers of 1812, to those whofought at the river Raisin. The Legislature has ordered a medal to bestruck in honor of a boy who had defended his ensign. No man can makea public speech in Kentucky without mention of Encancion and Monterey, or of the long line of battles in which every generation of our peoplehas fought. This is the other proof that in times of peace we do notforget. It is not much, but it is of the right kind--it is thesoldier's monument, it is the soldier's medal, it is the soldier'sfuneral oration, it is the recognition by the people of its ideal ofcourage in times of peace. And with every other brave people thisproof passes as the sign universal. But our homicides and our duels, nearly all of them brought about in the name--even under the fear--ofcourage, what effect have they had in giving us abroad our reputationas a community? I ask myself the question, what if all the men whohave killed their personal enemies or been killed by them in Kentucky, and if all the men who have killed their personal friends or beenkilled by them in Kentucky, had spent their love of fighting and theirlove of courage upon a monument to the Pioneers--such a monument asstands nowhere else in the world, and might fitly stand in this Stateto commemorate the winning of the West? Would the world think thebetter or the worse of the Kentucky ideal of bravery?

"I had not meant to talk to you so long on this subject, " I added, inapology, "but I have been thinking of these things lately since I havebeen so much in town. "

"I am interested, " said Georgiana; "but as I agree with you we need notboth speak. " But she looked pained, and I sought to give a happierturn to the conversation. 

"There is only one duel I ever heard of that gave me any pleasure, andthat one never came off. A few years ago a Kentuckian wrote apolitical satire on an Irishman in Illinois--wrote it as a widow. TheIrishman wished to fight. The widow offered to marry the Irishman, ifsuch a sacrifice would be accepted as satisfactory damages. TheIrishman sent a challenge, and the Kentuckian chose cavalry broadswordsof the largest size. He was a giant; he had the longest arms of anyman in Illinois; he could have mowed Erin down at a stroke like a greenmilkweed; he had been trained in duelling with oak-trees. You neverheard of him: his name is Abraham Lincoln. "

"I have heard of him, and I have seen him--in Union County before Icame here, " said Georgiana, with enthusiasm. 

"He came here once to hear Mr. Clay speak, " I resumed; "and I saw themwalking together one day under the trees at Ashland--the two mostremarkable-looking men that I ever beheld together or in human form. "

My few acres touch the many of the great statesman. Georgiana and Ioften hear of the movements of his life, as two little boats in a quietbay are tossed by the storms of the ocean. Any reference to him alwaysmakes us thoughtful, and we fell silent now. 

"Georgiana, " I said at length, softly. "It's all in self-defence. Ibelieve you promised to marry me in self-defence. "

"I did!" she said, promptly. 

"Well, I certainly asked you in self-defence, Miss Cobb, " I replied. "And now in a few days, according to the usage of my time, I am goingto take your life--even at the peril of my own. If you desire, it isyour privilege to examine the deadly weapons before the hour of actualcombat, " and I held out my arms to her appealingly. 

She bent her body delicately aside, as always. "I am upset, " she said, discouragingly. "You have been abusing Kentucky. "

"Ah, that is the trouble!" I answered. "You wish me to become moreinterested in my fellow-creatures. And then you will not let me speakof what they do. And the other day you told me that I am not perfectlynatural with anything but nature. Nature is the only thing that isperfectly natural with me. When I study nature there are no delicateor dangerous or forbidden subjects. The trees have no evasions. Theweeds are honest. Running water is not trying to escape. The sunsetsare not colored with hypocrisy. The lightning is not revenge. Everything stands forth in the sincerity of its being, and natureinvites me to exercise the absolute liberty of my mind upon all life. I am bidden to master and proclaim whatsoever truth she has fitted meto grasp. If I am worthy to investigate, none are offended; if Ishould be wise enough to discover any law of creation, the entire worldwould express its thanks. Imagine my being assassinated because I hadpublished a complete report upon the life and habits of thefield-mouse!"

"If one mouse published a report on the life and habits of another, there'd be a fight all over the field, " said Georgiana. 

"A ridiculous extreme, " I replied. "But after you have grown used tostudy nature with absolute freedom and absolute peace, think how humanlife repels you. You may not investigate, you may not speak out, youmay not even think, you may not even feel. You are not allowed toreveal what is concealed, and you are required to conceal what isrevealed. Natural! Have you ever known any two men to be perfectlynatural with each other except when they were fighting? As for the menthat I associate with every day, they weigh their words out to oneanother as the apothecary weighs his poisons, or the grocer hisgunpowder. "

"You forget, " said Georgiana, "that we are living in a veryextraordinary time, when everybody is sensitive and excited. "

"It is so always and everywhere, " I replied. "You may never study lifeas you study nature. With men you must take your choice: liberty foryour mind and a prison for your body; liberty for your body and aprison for your mind. Nearly all people choose the latter; we knowwhat becomes of the few who do not. "

But this reference to the times led us to speak slowly and solemnly ofwhat all men now are speaking--war that must come between the North andthe South. We agreed that it would come from each side as a blazingtorch to Kentucky, which lies between the two and is divided betweenthe two in love and hate--to Kentucky, where the ideal of a soldier'slife is always the ideal of a man's duty and utmost glory. 

At last I felt that my time had come. 

"Georgiana, " I said, "there is one secret I have never shared with you. It is the only fear I have ever felt regarding our future. But, ifthere should be a war--you'd better know it now--leave you or not leaveyou, I am going to join the army. "

She grew white and faint with the thought of a day to come. But atlast she said:

"Yes; you must go. "

"I know one thing, " I added, after a long silence; "if I could do mywhole duty as a Kentuckian--as an American citizen--as a human being--Ishould have to fight on both sides. "

I have thus set down in a poor way a part of the only talk I ever hadwith Georgiana on these subjects during the year 1851. 

Yesterday, about sunset, the earth and sky were beautiful with thatfulness of peace which things often attain at the moment before theyalter and end. The hour seemed to me the last serene loveliness ofsummer, soon to be ruffled by gales and blackened by frosts. 

Georgiana stood at her window looking into the west. The shadows ofthe trees in my yard fell longer and longer across the garden towardsher. Darkest among these lay the shapes of the cedars and the pines inwhich the redbird had lived. Her whole attitude bespoke a moodsurrendered to memory; and I felt sure that we two were thinking of thesame thing. 

As she has approached that mystical revelation of life which must comewith our marriage, Georgiana's gayety has grown subtly overcast. It isas if the wild strain in her were a little sad at having to be capturedat last; and I too experience an indefinable pain that it has become mylot to subdue her in this way. The thought possesses me that shesubmits to marriage because she cannot live intimately with me andlavish her love upon me in any other relation; and therefore I drawback with awe from the idea of taking such possession of her as I willand must. 

As she stood at her window yesterday evening she caught sight of meacross the yard and silently beckoned. I went over and looked up ather, waiting and smiling. 

"Well, what is it?" I asked at length, as her eyes rested on me withthe fulness of affection. 

"Nothing. I wanted to see you standing down there once more. Haven'tyou thought of it? This is the last time--the last of the window, thelast of the garden, the end of the past. Everything after this will beso different. Aren't you a little sorry that you are going to marryme?"

"Will you allow me to fetch the minister this instant?"

In the evening they put on her bridal dress and sent over for me, and, drawing the parlor doors aside, blinded me with the sight of herstanding in there, as if waiting in duty for love to claim its own. AsI saw her then I have but to close my eyes to see her now. I scarceknow why, but that vision of her haunts my mind mysteriously. 

I see a fresh snow-drift in a secret green valley between darkmountains. The sun must travel far and be risen high to reach it; butwhen it does, its rays pour down from near the zenith and are mostpowerful and warm; then in a little while the whole valley is greenagain and a white mist, rising from it, muffles the face of the sun. 

Oh, Georgiana! Georgiana! Do not fade away from me as I draw you tome. 

My last solitary candle flickers in the socket: it is in truth the endof the past. 

IV

Last summer I felled a dead oak in the woods and had the heart of himstored away for my winter fuel: a series of burnt-offerings to theworshipful spirit of my hearth-stone. There should have been severalof these offerings already, for October is almost ended now, and it isthe month during which the first cool nights come on in Kentucky andthe first fires are lighted. 

A few twilights ago I stood at my yard gate watching the red domes ofthe forest fade into shadow and listening to the cawing of crows underthe low gray of the sky as they hurried home. A chill crept over theearth. It was a fitting hour; I turned in-doors and summoned Georgiana. 

"We will light our first fire together, " I said, straining her to myheart. 

Kneeling gayly down, we piled the wood in the deep, wide chimney. Eachof us then brought a live coal, and together we started the blaze. Ihad drawn Georgiana's chair to one side of the fireplace, mineopposite; and with the candles still unlit we now sat silently watchingthe flame spread. What need was there of speech? We understood. 

By-and-by some broken wreaths of smoke floated, outward into the room. My sense caught the fragrance. I sniffed it with a rush of memories. Always that smell of smoke, with other wild, clean, pungent odors ofthe woods, had been strangely pleasant to me. I remember thinking ofthem when a boy as incense perpetually and reverently set free bynature towards the temple of the skies. They aroused in me even thenthe spirit of meditation on the mystery of the world; and later theybecame in-wrought with the pursuit and enjoyment of things that hadbeen the delight of my life for many years. So that coming now, at thevery moment when I was dedicating myself to my hearth-stone and todomestic life, this smell of wood smoke reached me like a message frommy past. For an instant ungovernable longings surged over me to returnto it. For an instant I did return; and once more I lay drowsingbefore my old camp-fires in the autumn woods, with the frosted treesdraping their crimson curtains around me on the walls of space and thestars flashing thick in the ceiling of my bedchamber. My dog, who hadstretched himself at my feet before the young blaze, inhaled the smokealso with a full breath of reminiscence, and lay watching me out of thecorner of his eye--I fancied with reproachful constancy. I caught hislook with a sense of guilt, and glanced across at Georgiana. 

Her gaze was buried deep in the flames. And how sweet her face was, how inexpressibly at peace. She had folded the wings of her wholelife, and sat by the hearth as still as a brooding dove. No past laidits disturbing touch upon her shoulder. Instead, I could see that ifthere were any flight of her mind away from the present it was into thefuture--a slow, tranquil flight across the years, with all thehappiness that they must bring. As I set my own thoughts to journeyafter hers, suddenly the scene in the room changed, and I beheldGeorgiana as an old, old lady, with locks of silver on her temples, spectacles, a tiny sock stuck through with needles on her knee, and herface finely wrinkled, but still blooming with unconquerable gayety andyouth. 

"How sweet that smoke is, Georgiana, " I said, rousing us both, andfeeling sure that she will understand me in whatsoever figure I mayspeak. "And how much we are wasting when we change this old oak backinto his elements--smoke and light, heat and ashes. What a magnificentwork he was on natural history, requiring hundreds of years for hispreparation and completion, written in a language so learned that notthe wisest can read him wisely, and enduringly bound in the finest oftree calf! It is a dishonor to speak of him as a work. He was adoctor of philosophy! He should have been a college professor! Thinkhow he could have used his own feet for a series of lectures on thelaws of equilibrium, capillary attraction, or soils and moisture! Wasthere ever a head that knew as much as his about the action of light?Did any human being ever more grandly bear the burdens of life orbetter face the tempests of the world? What did he not know aboutbirds? He had carried them in his arms and nurtured them in his bosomfor a thousand years. Even his old coat, with all its rents andpatches--what roll of papyrus was ever so crowded with the secrets ofknowledge? The august antiquarian! The old king! Can you imagine afuneral urn too noble for his ashes? But to what base uses, Georgiana!He will not keep the wind away any longer; we shall change him into akettle of lye with which to whiten our floors. "

What Georgiana's reply could have been I do not know, for at thatmoment Mrs. Walters flitted in. 

"I saw through the windows that you had a fire, " she said, volubly, "and ran over to get warm. And, oh! yes, I wanted to tell you--"

"Stop, _please_, Mrs. Walters!" I cried, starting towards her with anoutstretched hand and a warning laugh. "You have not yet been formallyintroduced to this room, and a formal introduction is necessary. Youmust be made acquainted with the primary law of its being;" and as Mrs. Walters paused, dropping her hands into her lap and regarding me withan air of mystification, I went on:

"When I had repairs made in my house last summer, I had this fireplacerebuilt, and I ordered an inscription to be burnt into the bricks. Weexpect to ask that all our guests will kindly notice this inscription, in order to avoid accidents or misunderstandings. So I beg of you notto speak until you have read the words over the fireplace. "

Mrs. Walters wonderingly read the following legend, running in an archacross the chimney:

 Good friend, around these hearth-stones speak no evil word of any creature. 

She wheeled towards me with instantaneous triumph. 

"I'm glad you put it there!" she cried. "I'm glad you put it there!It will teach them a lesson about their talking. If there is one thingI _cannot_ stand it is a gossip. "

I have observed that a fowl before a looking-glass will fight its ownimage. 

"Take care, Mrs. Walters!" I said, gently. "You came very near toviolating the law just then. "

"He meant it for me, Mrs. Walters, " said Georgiana, fondling ourneighbor's hand, and looking at me with an awful rebuke. 

"I meant it for myself, " I said. "And now it is doing its best to makeme feel like a Pharisee. So I hasten to add that there are other roomsin the house in which it will be allowed human nature to assert itselfin this long-established, hereditary, and ineradicable right. Ourguests have only to intimate that they can no longer restrain theirpropensities and we will conduct them to another chamber. Mrs. Mossand I will occasionally make use of these chambers ourselves, torelieve the tension of too much virtue. But it is seriously our ideato have one room in the house where we shall feel safe, both asrespects ourselves and as respects others, from the discomfort ofevil-speaking. As long as these walls stand or we dwell in them, thisis to be the room of charity and kindness to all creatures. "

Although we exerted ourselves, conversation flagged during the visit ofMrs. Walters. Several times she began to speak, but, with a frightenedlook at the fireplace, dropped into a cough, or cleared her throat in away that called to mind the pleasing habit of Sir Roger de Coverly inthe Gardens of Gray's Inn. 

Later in the evening other guests came. Upon each the law of thatfireside was lightly yet gravely impressed. They were in the main thefew friends I know in whom such an outward check would call for theleast inner restraint; nevertheless, on what a footing of confidence itplaced our conversation! To what a commanding level we were safelylifted! For nothing so releases the best powers of the mind as theunderstanding that the entire company are under bond to keep the peaceof the finest manners and of perfect breeding. 

And Georgiana--how she shone! I knew that she could perfectly fill awindow; I now see that she can as easily fill a room. Our bodies weregrouped about the fireplace; our minds centred around her, and sheflashed like the evening star along our intellectual pathway. 

The next day Mrs. Walters talked a long time to Georgiana on the edgeof the porch. 

Thus my wife and I have begun life together. I think that most of ourevenings will be spent in the room dedicated to a kind word for lifeuniversal. No matter how closely the warring forces of existence, within or without, have pressed upon us elsewhere, when we enter therewe enter peace. We shall be walled in, from all darkness of whatsoevermeaning; our better selves will be the sole guests of those luminoushours. And surely no greater good-fortune can befall any householdthan to escape an ignoble evening. To attain a noble one is like lyingcalmly down to sleep on a mountain-top towards which our feet havestruggled upward amid enemies all day long. 

Although we have now been two months married, I have not yet capturedthe old uncapturable loveliness of nature which has always led me andstill leads me on in the person of Georgiana, I know but too well nowthat I never shall. The charm in her which I pursue, yet neverovertake, is part and parcel of that ungraspable beauty of the worldwhich forever foils the sense while it sways the spirit--of thatelusive, infinite splendor of God which flows from afar into allterrestrial things, filling them as color fills the rose. Even while Ilive with Georgiana in the closest of human relationships, she retainsfor me the uncomprehended brightness and freshness of a dream that doesnot end and has no waking. 

This but edges yet more sharply the eagerness of my desire to enfoldher entire self into mine. We have been a revelation to each other, but the revelation is not complete; there are curtains behind curtains, which one by one we seek to lift as we penetrate more deeply into thediscoveries of our union. Sometimes she will seek me out and, sittingbeside me, put her arm around my neck and look long into my eyes, fullof a sort of beautiful, divine wonder at what I am, at what love is, atwhat it means for a man and a woman to live together as we live. Yet, folded to me thus, she also craves a still larger fulfilment. Oftenshe appears to be vainly hovering on the outside of a too solid sphere, seeking an entrance to where I really am. Even during the intimatesilences of the night we try to reach one another through the throbbingwalls of flesh--we but cling together across the lone, impassable gulfsof individual being. 

During these October nights the moon has reached its fulness and theearth been flooded with beauty. 

Our bed is placed near a window; and as the planet sinks across the skyits rays stream through the open shutter and fall upon Georgiana in hersleep. Sometimes I lie awake for the sole chance of seeing them floatupon her hair, pass lingeringly across her face, and steal holilydownward along her figure. How august she is in her purity! Thewhiteness of the fairest cloud that brushes the silvering orb is aspitch to the whiteness of her nature. 

The other night as I lay watching her thus, and while the lower part ofthe bed remained in deep shadow, I could see that the thin covering hadslipped aside, leaving Georgiana's feet exposed. 

With a start of pain I recollected an old story about her childhood:that one day for the sake of her rights she had received a wound in oneof her feet--how serious I had never known, but perhaps deforming, irremediable. My head was raised on the pillow; the moonlight wasmoving down that way; it would cross her feet; it would reveal thetruth. 

I turned my face away and closed my eyes. 

V

It is nearly dark when I reach home from town these January evenings. However the cold may sting the face and dart inward to the marrow, Georgiana is waiting at the yard gate to meet me, so hooded and shawledand ringed about with petticoats--like a tree within its layers ofbark--that she looks like the most thick-set of ordinary sized women;for there is a heavenly but very human secret hiding in this householdnow, and she is thoughtfully keeping it. 

"We press our half-frozen cheeks together, as red as wine-sap apples, and grope for each other's hand through our big lamb's-wool mittens, and warm our hearts with the laughter in each other's eyes. Oneevening she feigned to be mounted on guard, pacing to and fro insidethe gate, against which rested an enormous icicle. When I started toenter she seized the icicle, presented arms, and demanded thecountersign. 

"Love, captain, " I said, "If it be not that, slay me at your feet!"

She threw away her great white spear and put her arms around my neck. 

"It is 'Peace, '" she said. "But I desert to the enemy. "

Without going to my fireside that evening I hurried on to the stable;for I do not relinquish to my servants the office of feeding my stock. 

Believe in the divine rights of kings I never shall, except in thedivine right to be kingly men, which all men share; but truly a divineright lies for any man in the ownership of a comfortable barn inwinter. It is the feudal castle of the farm to the lower animals, whodwell in the Dark Ages of their kind--dwell on and on in affection, submission, and trust, while their lord demands of them their labor, their sustenance, or their life. 

Of a winter's day, when these poor dumb serfs have been scattered overthe portionless earth, how often they look towards this fortress andlift up their voices with cries for night to come; the horses, ruffledand shivering, with their tails to the wind, as they snap their frostedfodder, or paw through the rime to the frozen grass underneath, causingtheir icy fetlocks to rattle about their hoofs; the cattle, crowded toleeward of some deep-buried haystack, the exposed side of the outermostof them white with whirling flakes; the sheep, turning their pitiful, trusting eyes about them over the fields of storm in earth and sky!

What joy at nightfall to gather them home to food and warmth and rest!If there is ever a time when I feel myself a mediaeval lord to trustyvassals, it is then. Of a truth I pass entirely over the Middle Ages, joining my life to the most ancient dwellers of the plains, andbecoming a simple father of flocks and herds. When they have been dulystabled according to their kinds, I climb to the crib in the barn andcreate a great landslide of the fat ears that is like laughter; andthen from every stall what a hearty, healthy chorus of cries andpetitions responds to that laughter of the corn! What squeals andgrunts persuasive beyond the realms of rhetoric! What a blowing ofmellow horns from the cows! And the quick nostril trumpet-call of thehorse, how eager, how dependent, yet how commanding! As I mount to thetop of the pile, if I ever feel myself a royal personage it is then; Iascend my throne; I am king of the corn; and there is not a brutepeasant in my domain that does not worship me as ruler of heaven andearth. 

Or I love to catch up the bundles of oats as they are thrown down fromthe loft and send them whirling through the cutting-box so fast thatthey pour into the big baskets like streams of melted gold; or, grasping my pitchfork, I stuff the ricks over the mangers with the richaromatic hay until I am as warm as when I loaded the wagons with it atmidsummer noons. 

With what sweet sounds and odors now the whole barn is filled! Howrobust, clean, well-meaning are my thoughts! In what comfort of mind Ican turn to my own roof and store!

This hour in my stable is the only one out of the twenty-four left tome in which my feet may cross the boundary of human life into the worldof the other creatures; for I have gone into business in town togratify Georgiana. I think little enough of this business otherwise. Every day I pass through the groove of it with no more intellectualsatisfaction in it than I feel an intellectual satisfaction in passingmy legs through my pantaloons of a morning. But a man can studynothing in nature that does not outreach his powers. 

If time is left, I veer off from the barn to the wood-pile, for I loveto wield an axe, besides having a taste to cut my own wood for thenightly burning. This evening I could but stop to notice how theturkeys in the tree tops looked like enormous black nutgalls on thelimbs, except that the wind whisked their tails about as cheerily asthough they were already hearth-brooms. 

It is well for my poor turkeys that their tails contain no moisture;for on a night like this they would freeze stiff, and the leastincautious movement of a fowl in the morning would serve to crack itstail off--up to the pope's-nose. 

As I set my foot on the door-step, I went back to see whether the twosnow-birds were in their nightly places under the roof of theporch--the guardian spirits of our portal. There they were, wedgedeach into a snug corner as tightly as possible, so not to break theirfeathers, and leaving but one side exposed. Happening to have somewheat in my pocket, I pitched the grains up to the projecting ledge;they can take their breakfast in bed when they wake in the morning. Little philosophers of the frost, who even in their overcoats combinethe dark side and the white side of life into a wise and weatheringgray--the no less fit external for a man. 

The thought of them to-night put me strongly in mind of a former habitof mine to walk under the cedar-trees at such dark winter twilights andlisten to the low calls of the birds as they gathered in and settleddown. I have no time for such pleasant ways now, they have been givenup along with my other studies. 

This winter of 1851 and 1852 has been cold beyond the memory of man inKentucky--the memory of the white man, which goes back somethree-quarters of a century. Twice the Ohio River has been frozenover, a sight he had never seen. The thermometer has fallen to thirtydegrees below zero. Unheard of snows have blocked the two or threerailroads we have in the State. 

News comes that people are walking over the ice on East River, NewYork, and that the Mississippi at Memphis bears the weight of a man ahundred yards from the bank. 

Behind this winter lay last year's spring of rigors hitherto unknown, destroying orchards, vineyards, countless tender trees and plants. Itset everybody to talking of the year 1834, when such a frost fell thatto this day it is known as Black Friday in Kentucky; and it gave meoccasion to tell Georgiana a story my grandfather had told me, of howone night in the wilderness the weather grew so terrible that the wildbeasts came out of the forests to shelter themselves around the cabinsof the pioneers, and how he was awakened by them fighting and crowdingfor places against the warm walls and chimney-corners. If he had hadopened his door and crept back into bed, he might soon have had abuffalo on one side of his fireplace and a bear on the other, with awild-cat asleep on the hearth between, and with the thin-skinned deerleft shivering outside as truly as if they had all been human beings. 

Such a spring, with its destruction of seed-bearing and nut-hearingvegetation, followed by a winter that seals under ice what may havebeen produced, has spread starvation among the wild creatures. Arecent Sunday afternoon walk in the woods--Georgiana being away fromhome with her mother--showed me that part of the earth's surface rolledout as a vast white chart, on which were traced the desperate travelsof the snow-walkers in search of food. Squirrel, chipmunk, rabbit, weasel, mouse, mink, fox--their tracks crossed and recrossed, wound inand out and round and round, making an intricate lace-work beautifuland pitiful to behold. Crow prints ringed every corn-shock in thefield. At the base of one I picked up a frozen dove--starved at thebrink of plenty. Rabbit tracks grew thickest as I entered my turnipand cabbage patches, converging towards my house, and coming to a focusat a group of snow-covered pyramids, in which last autumn, as usual, Iburied my vegetables. I told Georgiana:

"They are attracted by the leaves that Dilsy throws away when she getsout what we need. Think of it--a whole neighborhood of rabbitshurrying here after dark for the chance of a bare nibble at a possibleleaf. " Once that night I turned in bed, restless. Georgiana did thesame. 

"Are you awake?" she said, softly. 

"Are you?"

"Are you thinking about the rabbits?"

"Yes; are you?"

"What do you suppose they think about us?"

"I'd rather not know. "

Georgiana tells me that the birds in unusual numbers are winteringamong the trees, driven to us with the boldness of despair. God andnature have forgotten them; they have nothing to choose between butdeath and man. She has taken my place as their almoner and nightlyrenders me an account of what she has done. This winter gives her agreat chance and she adorns it. It seems that never before were somany redbirds in the cedars; and although one subject is nevermentioned between us, unconsciously she dwells upon these in her talk, and plainly favors them in her affection for the sake of the past. There are many stories I could relate to show how simple and beautifulis this whole aspect of her nature. 

A little thing happened to-night. 

Towards ten o'clock she brought my hat, overcoat, overshoes, mittens, comforter. 

"Put them on, " she said, mysteriously. 

She also got ready, separating herself from me by so many clothes thatI could almost have felt myself entitled to a divorce. 

It was like day out-of-doors with the moon shining on the snow. Wecrept towards the garden, screened behind out-buildings. When wereached the fence, we looked through towards the white pyramids. Allthat part of the ground was alive with rabbits. Georgiana had spreadfor them a banquet of Lucullus, a Belshazzar's feast. It had been doneto please me, I knew, and out of a certain playfulness of her own; outthere are other charities of hers, which she thinks known only toherself, that show as well the divine drift of her thoughtfulness. 

She is asleep now--for the sake of the Secret. After she had gone tobed, what with the spectacle of the rabbits and what with our talkbeforehand of the many cardinals in the cedars, my thoughts began torun freshly on old subjects, and, unlocking my bureau, I got out mynotes and drawings for the work on Kentucky birds. Georgiana does notknow that they exist; she never shall. With what authority thosestudies call me still, as with a trumpet from the skies! and I knowthat trumpet will sound on till my ears are past hearing. Sometimes Ilook upon myself as a man who has had two hearts; one lies buried inthe woods, and the other sits at the fireside thinking of it. Butsleep on, Georgiana--mother that is to be. The dreams of your lifeshall never be disturbed by the old dreams of mine. 

VI

The population of this town on yesterday was seven thousand ninehundred and twenty; today it is seven thousand, nine hundred andtwenty-_one_. The inhabitants of the globe are enriched by the samestupendous unit; the solar system must adjust itself to new laws ofequilibrium; the choir of angels is sweetened by the advent of anothermusician. During the night Georgiana bore a son--not during the night, but at dawn, and amid such singing of birds that every tree in the yardbecame a dew-hung belfry of chimes, ringing a welcome to the heir ofthis old house and of these old trees--to the dispenser of seed duringwinters to come--to the proprietor of a whole race of seed-scatterersas long as nature shall be harsh and seasons shall return. 

I had already bought the largest family Bible in the town as arepository for his name, Adam Cobb Moss, which in clear euphony is mostfit to be enrolled among the sweetly sounding vocables of the Hebrewchildren. The page for the registration of later births in my familyis so large and the lines ruled across it are so many that I am deeplymortified over this solitary entry at the top. But surely Georgianaand I would have to live far past the ages of Abraham and Sarah to fillit with the requisite wealth of offspring, beginning as we do, andbeing without divine assistance. When the name of our eldest-born isinscribed in this Bible, not far away will be found a scene in the homeof his first parents, Georgiana and I being only the last of these, andgiving, as it were, merely the finishing Kentucky touch to his Jewishorigin. 

But I gambol in spirit like a hawk in the air. Let me hood myself withparental cares: I have been a sire for half a day. 

I am speechless before the stupendous wisdom of my son in view of hisstupendous ignorance. Already he lectures to the old people about thehouse on the perfect conduct of life, and the only preparation that herequires for his lectures is a few drops of milk. By means of these, and without any knowledge of anatomy, he will show us, for instance, what it is to be master of the science of vital functions. When heregards it necessary to do anything, he does it instantly andperfectly, and the world may take the consequences and the result. Heforthwith addresses himself to fresh comfort and new enterprises forself-development. Beyond what is vital he refuses to go; things thatdo not concern him he lets alone. He has no cares beyond his needs;all space to him is what he can fill, all time his instant of action. He does not know where he came from, what he is, why here, whitherbound; nor does he ask. 

My heart aches helplessly for him when he shall have become a man andhave grown less wise: when he shall find it necessary to act forhimself and shall yet be troubled by what his companions may think;when he shall no longer live within the fortress of the vital, but takeup his wandering abode with the husks and swine; when he shall nolonger let the world pass by him with heed only as there is need, butweary himself to better the unchangeable; when space shall not be somequiet nook of the world large enough for the cradle of his life, butthe illimitable void filled with floating spheres, out upon the myriadsof which, with his poor, puzzled, human eyes, he will pitifully gaze;when time shall not be his instant of action, but two eternities, pastand future, along the baffling walls of which he will lead his gropingfaith; and when the questioning of his stoutest years shall be: Whencecame I? And what am I? Why here for a little while? Where to behereafter? A swimmer is drowned by a wave originating in the moon; atraveller is struck down by a bolt originating in a cloud; a workman isovercome by the heat originating in the sun; and so, perhaps, the endwill come to him through his solitary struggle with the great powers ofthe universe that perpetually reach him, but remain forever beyond hisreach. If I could put forth one protecting prayer that would cover allhis years, it would be that through life he continue as wise as the dayhe was born. 

The third of June once more. Rain fell all yesterday, all last night. This morning earth and sky are dark and chill. The plants are boweddown, and no wind releases them from their burden of large white drops. About the yard the red-rose bushes fall away from the fences, thelilacs stand with their purple clusters hanging down as heavily asclusters of purple grapes. I hear the young orioles calling drearilyfrom wet nests under dripping boughs. A plaintive piping of lostlittle chickens comes from the long grass. 

How unlike the day is to the third of June two years ago. I was in thestrawberry bed that crystalline morning; Georgiana came to the window, and I beheld her for the first time. How unlike the same day one yearback. Again I was in the strawberry bed, again Georgiana came towindow and spoke to me as before. This morning as I tipped into herroom where she lay in bed, she turned her face to me on the pillow, andfor the third time she said, fondly;

"Old man, are you the gardener?"

The sky being so blanketed with cloud, although the shutters were openonly a faint gray light filled the room. It was the first day that shehad been well enough to have it done; but now the bed in whichGeorgiana lay was spread with the most beautiful draperies of white;the pillows were rich with needle-work and lace, and for the first timeshe had put on the badge of her new dignity, a little white cap ofribbons and lace, the long wide streamers of which, edged with lace, lay out upon the counterpane like bauds of the most delicate frost. The fingers of one hand rested lightly on the child beside her, asthough she were counting the pulse of its oncoming life. Out in theyard the lilies of the valley, slipping out of their cool sheaths ofgreen leaves, were not more white, more fresh. And surely Georgiana'sgayety is the unconquerable gayety of the world, the youthfulness ofyouth immortal. 

I went over to her with the strange new awe I feel at my union with theyoung mother, where hitherto there has but been a union with the womanI love. She stretched out her hands to me, almost hidden under thelace of her sleeves, and drew my face down against hers, as she said inmy ear, "_Now_ you are the old Adam!"

When she released me, she bent over the child and added, reproachfully, "You haven't paid the least attention to the baby yet. "

"I haven't noticed that the baby has bestowed the least attention uponme. He is the youngest. "

"He is the guest of the house! It is your duty to speak to him first. "

"He doesn't act like a guest in my house. He behaves as though heowned it. I'm nobody since he arrived--not even his body-servant. "

Georgiana, who was still bending over the child, glanced up with a lookof confidential, whimsical distress. 

"How could anything so old be born so young!"

"He will look younger as he gets older, " I replied. "And he will notbe the first bachelor to do that. At present this youngster is aninvaluable human document in too large an envelope; that's all. "

Georgiana, with a swift, protecting movement, leaned nearer to thechild, and spoke to him:

"It's your house; tell him to leave the room for his impertinence. "

"He may have the house, since it's his, " I replied. "But there is onething I'll not stand; if he ever comes between me and you, he'll haveto go; I'll present him to Mrs. Walters. "

I was not aware of the expression with which I stood looking down uponmy son, but Georgiana must have noticed it. 

"And what if he supplants me some day?" she asked, suddenly serious, and with an old fear reviving. 

"Oh, Georgiana!" I cried, kneeling by the bedside and putting my armsaround her, "you know that as long as we are in this world I am yourlover. "

"No longer?" she whispered, drawing me closer. 

"Through eternity!"

By-and-by I went out to the strawberry-bed. The season was toobackward. None were turning. With bitter disappointment I searchedthe cold, wet leaves, bending them apart for the sight of as much asone scarlet lobe, that I might take it in to her if only forremembrance of the day. At last I gathered a few perfect leaves andblossoms, and presented them to her in silence on a plate with a waiterand napkin. 

She rewarded me with a laugh, and lifted from the plate a spray ofblossoms. 

"They will be ripe by the time I am well, " she said, the sunlight ofmemory coming out upon her face. Then having touched the wet blossomswith her finger-tips, she dropped them quickly back into the plate. 

"How cold they are!" she said, as a shiver ran through her. At thesame time she looked quickly at me, her eyes grown dark with dread. 

I set the plate hastily down, and she put her hands in mine to warmthem. 

VII

A month has gone by since Georgiana passed away. 

To-day, for the first time, I went back to the woods. It was pleasantto be surrounded again by the ever-living earth that feels no loss andhas no memory; that was sere yesterday, is green to-day, will be sereagain to-morrow, then green once more; that pauses not for wounds andwrecks, nor lingers over death and change; but onward, ever onward, along the groove of law, passes from its red origin in universal flameto its white end in universal snow. 

And yet, as I approached the edge of the forest, it was as though aninvisible company of influences came gently forth to meet me and soughtto draw me back into their old friendship. I found myself stroking thetrunks of the trees as I would throw my arm around the shoulders of atried comrade; I drew down the branches and plunged my face into thenew leaves as into a tonic stream. 

Yesterday a wind storm swept this neighborhood. Later, deep in thewoods, I came upon an elm that had been struck by a bolt at the top. Nearly half the trunk had been torn away; and one huge limb lay acrossmy path. 

As I stood looking at it, the single note of a bird fell on myear--always the same note, low, quiet, regular, devoid of feeling, asthough the bird had been stunned and were trying to say: _What can Ido_? _What can I do_? _What can I do_?

I knew what that note meant. It was the note with which a bird now andthen lingers around the scene of the central tragedy of its life. 

After a long search I found the nest, crushed against the ground underthe huge limb, and a few feet from it, in the act of trying to escape, the female. The male, sitting meantime on the end of a bough near by, watched me incuriously, and with no change in that quiet, regular, careless note--he knew only too well that she was past my harming. Theplan for his life had reached an end in early summer. 

I sat down near him for a while, thinking of the universal tragedy ofthe nest. 

It was the second time to-day that this divine wastage in nature hadforced itself on my thought, and this morning the spectacle was on ascale of tragic greatness beyond anything that has ever touched humanlife in this part of the country: Mr. Clay was buried amid the long sadblare of music, the tolling of bells, the roll of drums, the boom ofcannon, and the grief of thousands upon thousands upon thousands ofpeople--a vast and solemn pageant, yet as nothing to the multitude thatwill attend afar. For him this day the flags of nations will fly athalf-mast; and the truly great men of the world, wherever the tidingsmay reach them of his passing, will stand awe-stricken that one oftheir superhuman company has been too soon withdrawn. 

Too soon withdrawn! Therein is the tragedy of the nest, the wastage ofthe divine, the law of loss, whose reign on earth is unending, butwhose right to reign no creature, brute or human, ever acknowledges. 

The death of Mr. Clay is one of the many things that are happening tochange all that made up my life with Georgiana. She was a truehero-worshipper, and she worshipped him. I no less. Now that he isdead, I feel as much lonelier as a soldier feels whose chosen tent-mateand whose general have fallen on the field together. 

As I turned, away from the overcrowded town this afternoon towards thewoods and was confronted by the wreck of the storm, my thoughts beingyet full of Mr. Clay, of his enemies and disappointment, there rosebefore my mind a scene such as Audubon may once have witnessed:

The light of day is dying over the forests of the upper Mississippi. The silence of high space falls upon the vast stream. On athunder-blasted tree-top near the western bank sits a lone, sternfigure waiting for its lordliest prey--the eagle waiting for the swan. Long the stillness continues among the rocks, the tree-tops, and abovethe river. But far away in the north a white shape is floating nearer. At last it comes into sight, flying heavily, for it is already weary, being already wounded. The next moment the cry of its coming is heardechoing onward and downward upon the silent woods. Instantly themighty watcher on the summit is alert and tense; and as the great snowyimage of the swan floats by, in mid-air and midway of the broad expanseof water, he meets it. No battle is fought up there--the two are notwell matched; and thus, separated from all that is little andstruggling far above all that is low, with the daylight dying on hisspotlessness, the swan receives the blow in its heart. 

So came Death to the great Commoner. 

Oh, Georgiana! I do not think of Death as ever having come to you. Ithink of you as some strangely beautiful white being that one day roseout of these earthly marshes where hunts the dark Fowler, and utteringyour note of divine farewell, spread your wings towards the open sea ofeternity, there to await my coming. 

VIII

It is a year and four months since Georgiana left me, and noweverything goes on much as it did before she came. The family havemoved back to their home in Henderson, returning like a little companyof travellers who have lost their guide. Sylvia has already married;her brother writes me that he is soon to be; the mother visits me andmy child, yearningly, but seldom, on account of her delicate health;and thus our lives grow always more apart. None take their places, thehouse having passed to people with whom, beyond all neighborlycivilities, I have naught to do. Nowadays as I stroll around my gardenwith my little boy in my arms strange faces look down upon us out ofGeorgiana's window. 

And I have long since gone back to nature. 

When the harvest has been gathered from our strong, true land, a growthcomes on which late in the year causes the earth to regain somewhat ofits old greenness. New blades spring up in the stubble of the wheat;the beeless clover runs and blossoms; far and wide over the meadowsflows the tufted billows of the grass; and in the woods the oak-treedrops the purple and brown of his leaf and mast upon the verdure ofJune. Everywhere a second spring puts forth between summer gone andwinter nearing. It is the overflow of plenty beyond the filling of thebarns. It is a wave of life following quickly upon the one that brokebountifully at our feet. It is nature's refusal to be once reaped andso to end. 

The math: then the aftermath. 

Upon the Kentucky landscape during these October days there lies thislater youth of the year, calm, deep, vigorous. And as I spend muchtime in it for the fine, fresh work it brings to hand and thought, Ifeel that in my way I am part of it, that I can match the aftermath ofnature with the aftermath of my life. The Harvester passed over myfields, leaving them bare; they are green again up to the winter's edge. 

The thought has now come into my mind that I shall lay aside thesepages for my son to ponder if he should ever grow old enough to valuewhat he reads. They will give him some account of how his father andmother met in the old time, of their courting days, of their happy lifetogether. And since it becomes more probable that there will be a war, and that I might not be living to speak to him of his mother in waysnot written here, I shall set down one thing about her which I pray hemay take well to heart. He ought to know and to remember this: thathis life was the price of hers; she was extinguished that he mightshine, and he owes it to her that the flame of his torch be as white asthe altar's from which it was kindled. 

Perhaps the most remarkable thing, then, in the character of hismother--which, please God, he will have, or, getting all things else, he can never be a gentleman--was honor. It shone from her countenance, it ran like melody in her voice, it made her eyes the most beautiful inexpression that I have ever seen, it enveloped her person and demeanorwith a spiritual grace. Honor in what are called the little things oflife, honor not as women commonly understand it, but as the best of menunderstand it--that his mother had. It was the crystalline, unshakablerock upon which the somewhat fragile and never to be completedstructure of her life was reared. 

If he be anything of a philosopher, he may reason that this trait musthave made his mother too serious and too hard. Let him think again. It was the very core of soundness in her that kept her gay and sweet. I have often likened her mind to the sky in its power of changeablenessfrom radiant joyousness to sober calm; but oftenest it was like thevault of April, whose drops quicken what they fall upon; and she was ofa soft-heartedness that ruled her absolutely--but only to theunyielding edge of honor. Yet she did not escape this charge of beingboth hard and serious upon the part of men and women who were used tothe laxness of small misdemeanors, and felt ill at ease before theterrifying truth that she was a lady. 

Beyond this single trait of hers--which, if it please God that heinherit it, may he keep though he lose everything else--I set nothingfurther down for his remembrance, since naught could come of mywriting. By words I could no more give him an idea of what his motherwas than I could point him to a few measures of wheat and bid himbehold a living harvest. 

Upon these fields of cool October greenness there risen out of theearth a low, sturdy weed. Upon the top of this weed small whiteblossoms open as still as stars of frost. Upon these blossoms lies afragrance so pure and wholesome that the searching sense is nevercloyed, never satisfied. Years after the blossoms are dried and yellowand the leaves withered and gone, this wholesome fragrance lasts. Thecommon people, who often put their hopes into their names, call itlife-everlasting. Sometimes they make themselves pillows of it for itsvirtue of bringing a quiet sleep. 

This plant is blooming out now, and nightly as I wend homeward I plucka handful of it, gathering along with its life the tranquil sunshine, the autumnal notes of the cardinal passing to better lands, and all thehealthful influences of the fields. I shall make me a tribute of it tothe memory of her undying sweetness. 

If God wills, when I fall asleep for good I shall lay my head besidehers on the bosom of the Life Everlasting.