Volume I Part 10 (2/2)
Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black-and-white sheep, and the piano gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop--so still you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of 'em at once, and then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood-and-ivory anvils--don't talk to me; I know the difference between a bullfrog and a wood-thrush.--_The Poet at the Breakfast Table._
”That is rather a shabby pair of trousers you have on, for a man in your position.”
”Yes, sir; but clothes do not make the man. What if my trousers are shabby and worn? They cover a warm heart, sir.”
FREDERICK S. COZZENS
LIVING IN THE COUNTRY
It is a good thing to live in the country. To escape from the prison-walls of the metropolis--the great brickery we call ”the city”--and to live amid blossoms and leaves, in shadow and suns.h.i.+ne, in moonlight and starlight, in rain, mist, dew, h.o.a.rfrost, and drought, out in the open campaign and under the blue dome that is bounded by the horizon only. It is a good thing to have a well with dripping buckets, a porch with honey-buds and sweet-bells, a hive embroidered with nimble bees, a sun-dial mossed over, ivy up to the eaves, curtains of dimity, a tumbler of fresh flowers in your bedroom, a rooster on the roof, and a dog under the piazza.
When Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s and I moved into the country, with our heads full of fresh b.u.t.ter, and cool, crisp radishes for tea; with ideas entirely lucid respecting milk, and a looseness of calculation as to the number in family it would take a good laying hen to supply with fresh eggs every morning; when Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s and I moved into the country, we found some preconceived notions had to be abandoned, and some departures made from the plans we had laid down in the little back parlor of Avenue G.
One of the first achievements in the country is early rising: with the lark--with the sun--while the dew is on the gra.s.s, ”under the opening eye-lids of the morn,” and so forth. Early rising! What can be done with five or six o'clock in town? What may not be done at those hours in the country? With the hoe, the rake, the dibble, the spade, the watering-pot? To plant, prune, drill, transplant, graft, train, and sprinkle! Mrs. S. and I agreed to rise _early_ in the country.
Richard and Robin were two pretty men, They laid in bed till the clock struck ten; Up jumped Richard and looked at the sky; O, Brother Robin, the sun's _very_ high!
Early rising in the country is not an instinct; it is a sentiment, and must be cultivated.
A friend recommended me to send to the south side of Long Island for some very prolific potatoes--the real hippopotamus breed. Down went my man, and what, with expenses of horse-hire, tavern bills, toll-gates, and breaking a wagon, the hippopotami cost as much apiece as pineapples.
They were fine potatoes, though, with comely features, and large, languis.h.i.+ng eyes, that promised increase of family without delay. As I worked my own garden (for which I hired a landscape gardener at two dollars per day to give me instructions), I concluded that the object of my first experiment in early rising should be the planting of the hippopotamuses. I accordingly arose next morning at five, and it rained!
I rose next day at five, and it rained! The next, and it rained! It rained for two weeks! We had splendid potatoes every day for dinner. ”My dear,” said I to Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s, ”where did you get these fine potatoes?” ”Why,” said she, innocently, ”out of that basket from Long Island!” The last of the hippopotamuses were before me, peeled, and boiled, and mashed, and baked, with a nice thin brown crust on the top.
I was more successful afterward. I did get some fine seed-potatoes in the ground. But something was the matter; at the end of the season I did not get as many out as I had put in.
Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s, who is a notable housewife, said to me one day, ”Now, my dear, we shall soon have plenty of eggs, for I have been buying a lot of young chickens.” There they were, each one with as many feathers as a gra.s.shopper, and a chirp not louder. Of course, we looked forward with pleasant hopes to the period when the first cackle should announce the milk-white egg, warmly deposited in the hay which we had provided bountifully. They grew finely, and one day I ventured to remark that our hens had remarkably large combs, to which Mrs. S. replied, ”Yes, indeed, she had observed that; but if I wanted to have a real treat I ought to get up early in the morning and hear them crow.” ”Crow!” said I, faintly, ”our hens crowing! Then, by 'the c.o.c.k that crowed in the morn, to wake the priest all shaven and shorn,' we might as well give up all hopes of having any eggs,” said I; ”for as sure as you live, Mrs. S., our hens are all roosters!” And so they were roosters! They grew up and fought with the neighbors' chickens, until there was not a whole pair of eyes on either side of the fence.
A _dog_ is a good thing to have in the country. I have one which I raised from a pup. He is a good, stout fellow, and a hearty barker and feeder. The man of whom I bought him said he was thoroughbred, but he begins to have a mongrel look about him. He is a good watch-dog, though; for the moment he sees any suspicious-looking person about the premises he comes right into the kitchen and gets behind the stove. First, we kept him in the house, and he scratched all night to get out. Then we turned him out, and he scratched all night to get in. Then we tied him up at the back of the garden, and he howled so that our neighbour shot at him twice before daybreak. Finally we gave him away, and he came back; and now he is just recovering from a fit, in which he has torn up the patch that has been sown for our spring radishes.
A good, strong gate is a necessary article for your garden. A good, strong, heavy gate, with a dislocated hinge, so that it will neither open nor shut. Such a one have I. The grounds before my fence are in common, and all the neighbors' cows pasture there. I remarked to Mrs.
S., as we stood at the window in a June sunset, how placid and picturesque the cattle looked, as they strolled about, cropping the green herbage. Next morning I found the innocent creatures in my garden. They had not left a green thing in it. The corn in the milk, the beans on the poles, the young cabbages, the tender lettuce, even the thriving shoots on my young fruit trees had vanished. And there they were, looking quietly on the ruin they had made. Our watch-dog, too, was foregathering with them. It was too much; so I got a large stick and drove them all out, except a young heifer, whom I chased all over the flower-beds, breaking down my trellises, my woodbines and sweet-briers, my roses and petunias, until I cornered her in the hotbed. I had to call for a.s.sistance to extricate her from the sashes, and her owner has sued me for damages. I believe I shall move in town.
Mrs. Sparrowgra.s.s and I have concluded to try it once more; we are going to give the country another chance. After all, birds in the spring are lovely. First come little s...o...b..rds, _avant-couriers_ of the feathered army; then bluebirds in national uniforms, just graduated, perhaps, from the ornithological corps of cadets with high honors in the topographical cla.s.s; then follows a detachment of flying artillery--swallows; sand-martens, sappers and miners, begin their mines and countermines under the sandy parapets; then cedar birds, in trim jackets faced with yellow--aha, dragoons! And then the great rank and file of infantry, robins, wrens, sparrows, chipping-birds; and lastly--the band!
From nature's old cathedral sweetly ring The wild bird choirs--burst of the woodland band, --who mid the blossoms sing; Their leafy temple, gloomy, tall and grand, Pillared with oaks, and roofed with Heaven's own hand.
There, there, that is Mario. Hear that magnificent chest note from the chestnuts! then a crescendo, falling in silence--_a plomb!_
Hus.h.!.+ he begins again with a low, liquid monotone, mounting by degrees and swelling into an infinitude of melody--the whole grove dilating, as it were, with exquisite epithalamium.
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