Part 10 (1/2)
Why, f.a.n.n.y Fern! Did you ever hear any old saying about practising and preaching? How came you ever to think of this sentiment? Oh, f.a.n.n.y!
you are a born _writer of fiction_. Didn't you prove your genius for that sort of thing when you wrote the following 'Fern.'
”Well, now, do you know I did that, till I came very near being mobbed in the street for a curiosity? I was verdant enough to believe that 'honesty was the best policy.' The first astonisher that I had, was on the occasion of the visit of a vain old lady to our house, before I was out of pantalettes. Her bonnet was stuck full of artificial flowers, looking as much out of place as a wreath of rosebuds on a mummy! Some such thought was pa.s.sing through my mind, as I stood looking at her--when, mistaking my protracted gaze for one of _admiration_, she faced square about, and asked me if I didn't think they were _becoming_? '_No ma'am_,' said I, never flinching a hair.
_Didn't_ I get a boxed ear for that?
”Well, I didn't make out much better in my subsequent attempts to 'speak the truth;' and what visionary ever concocted such nonsense, _I'm_ at a loss to know.
”I'd like to put the question to you, and _you_, and YOU, and YOU!--Would the wheels of creation ever 'go ahead' without one everlasting intolerable squeak, if they were not 'oiled up' constantly with flattery? No s.h.i.+rking, now! no dodging the question! OF COURSE they wouldn't! I humbly confess I ain't broke in myself, as much as I ought to be, but I'm learning by degrees! I can't help looking over my shoulder occasionally when anybody says a pretty thing to me to see if 'cloven foot' is anywhere round! but that will wear off in time. It almost killed me the first time I did the agreeable to a person I had no more respect for than Judas Iscariot, but I lived through it, though I don't take to it naturally!
”I've a tell-tale trick of blus.h.i.+ng, too, when I'm being delivered of a lie, that stands very much in my light. I'm afraid there's some defect in my organization. I've applied to two or three young physicians, but they only aggravate my complaint. I'm thinking of putting myself under the tuition of ----; if I don't 'take my degree'
THEN, I'll _give up_ and done with it!
”Oh dear! it's an awful thing to grow up! to find your catechise, and Jack the Giant-Killer, and your Primer, and Mother Goose, all a humbug! To come across a wolf making 'sheep's eyes' at a lamb; to be obliged to make a chalk-mark on the saints to know them from the sinners; to see husbands, well--THERE! when I think of THEM, I must wait till a new dictionary is made before I can express my indignation! Wish I'd been introduced to Adam before he found out it was beyond him to keep the commandments. If there's anything I hate, _'tis an apple_!”
x.x.x.
MOSES MILTIADES MADISON.
Everybody knows Moses. He and others like him, ”carry the bag” in too many of our churches. But n.o.body seems to know him so well as f.a.n.n.y; so we will let her relate his ”experience,” in her own words:
”Moses Miltiades Madison would fain have the world believe that the stumbling-block the fallen angels tripped over was no besetting sin of _his_.
”The very tails of his coat hung around him in a helpless kind of a way, as if they knew they _ought_ to be suggestive of their owner's _humility_. No sinful zephyrs presumed to dally with the straight locks, plastered with such puritanical precision over his diminutive head; his mouth had a sanctimonious drawing down at the corners, and his voice was a cross between a groan and a wail. At every prayer-meeting and conventicle, Moses was on the ground, (simultaneously with the s.e.xton,) made the most long-winded prayer; elaborated to _seventh_-LIE, the verse he was expounding, and kept one note ahead of the singing-choir in the 'doxology;' knew exactly how long it would be before the natives of the Palm Tree Islands would dress more fas.h.i.+onably than the wild beasts around them, and was entirely posted up about the last speech and confession of the very latest missionary whom the savages had made mince-meat of.
”Now Moses had an invalid wife; and his 'path of duty,' after evening meeting, generally laid in the direction of Widow Gray's house. _She_ was '_afraid_' and _he--wasn't_! So he took the prayer-book, the Bible, and the widow, under his protection, and went the longest way round. His wife, to be sure, before his return, came to the conclusion that it was a '_protracted_ meeting,' but then _Moses_ was 'a burning and a s.h.i.+ning light,' (at least so the 'church' said,) and if _Mrs._ Moses was of a different opinion, she kept it to herself. That he did occasionally pervert Scripture words and phrases, and make a very 'carnal' use of the same, when none of the congregation were present, was an indisputable fact; that the crickets, and chairs and tables, sometimes changed places in a hurry, was another; but the last was probably owing to his being a 'medium' for some '_spiritual_ rappings.'
”But if Mrs. Moses 'kept dark,' Jeremiah Jones wouldn't! He was as thorough and straight-forward in his religion as he was in building houses; he detested 'sham foundations,' as he professionally expressed it!
”One night, in an evil hour, Moses popped up, as usual, from his seat in meeting, intending to give an extra touch to his devotional exercises, as he contemplated taking a longer walk than usual with little Widow Gray. So he told 'the brethren,' (through his nose,) that 'if ever there _was_ a sinner that deserved a _very_ uncomfortable place hereafter, it was _him_--(_Moses!_)--that it was a marvel to him that he was permitted to c.u.mber the earth, that his sins were more than the hairs on his head,' (and, by the way, that was a very moderate computation!)
”So Jeremiah Jones seemed to think; for he 'riz' very demurely, and remarked that 'he had been brother Moses Madison's neighbor for many years, and was qualified to endorse that little statement of his, with regard to himself, as _substantially correct in every particular_!'
Moses fainted!”
x.x.xI.
TOM VERSUS FAN; OR, A LITTLE TALK ABOUT LITTLE THINGS.
In the sketch thus ent.i.tled, we are once more presented with a life picture, a veritable transcript of the writer's own mind. It will be seen that f.a.n.n.y is _au fait_ in the mysteries of coquetry; understands the use of long dresses, and ”gaiter-boots” to perfection. Just listen:--
”'Well, Fan; any room for _me_ here?' said Tom Grey, as he seated himself in a large arm-chair in his sister's boudoir.
”'Possession is nine points of the law, Tom; it's no use answering in the negative _now_.'
”'I'm in a very distracted state of mind, sis, and I've come to make a clean breast of it to you.'