Newspaper Page Text
108
©rigittal JJoctrti.
For th# Southern Literary Gazette.
INTERCEPTED LETTERS—NO. 4.
VROM A TOWN BELLF. TO HER COUNTRY COUSIN.
Commencement is over at last, cousin Ann,
And it was so exceedingly pleasant,
I’m sure I regret quite ns much as you can,
That you should have failed to be present.
And now it is needless for me to describe
The public events of th’ occasion,
Since the men of the Press— gossiping tribe—
Have given them all publication.
So what can I tell you but trifles, my dear,
That none but we girls ever notice,
I know such a record must foolish appear,
But it’s just what we like, and you know ’tis 1
The sermon on Sunday I thought very good,
And the preacher is certainly handsome;
So smart and good-looking, 1 wonder who would
Refuse to be won with such ransom.
I heard all the Sophomores,—nearly a score, —
I wish they’d select sliorter*pieces:
To listen for three mortal hours’s a bore,
And soon all one’s interest ceases.
The Juniors did very well, I must say,
Though the ladies don’t thank Mr. F 1,
And if ever he comes, a3 1 wish, in my way,
It will be, as he’ll find, at his peril.
What business had he to be prating about
Those things that belong to us solely—
Our whalebones and tournurcs —the impudent lout!
—Should bo sacred, although they’re not holy !
1 hope that if ever he gets him a wife,
(Will there ever be woman so stupid!)
To pay for his rashness, she’ll lead him a life
Unknown in the annals of Cupid!
On Wednesday I went to the Chapel at nine
To get a good look at tho.gallants ;
But really, dear cousin, F looked so divine,
I confess, I scarce noticed the balance.
The crowd was immense, and all the poor beaux
Had to yield up their seats to the ladies ;
And some surly fellows there were, p’r’aps,—who
knows 1—
Who wished all the women at Hades.
I did not hear much of the speaking, I own,
For F was within talking distance ;
And his voice, though ’twas only a low under-tone,
Was the sweetest, to me, in existence.
The music was good, and that’s no little p!|rt
Os Commencement, at least, to my notion;
While it lasts, tender looks and sweet glances dart,
An l we’re all in delightful commotion.
When the boys were all done, and tho parchments
bestowed,
(Those proofs of their wonderful knowledge !)
I wenthhomose —of course in my carriage I rode,
Tho’ you know I live close by the college !
At night to “ the party ” I went, and oh Ann !
It was charming, delightful, nay, splendid ;
Soon after I got there the dancing began,
And I danced till the party was ended !
The supper was furnished with exquisite taste,
Creams, syllabubs, fruits and confections;
Not to mention the turkies, the tongues and the
paste—
To this hour I’ve sweet recollections.
I’ve scarcely left room for the news of tho town,
The chieftest of which is a wedding ;
Mr. M sand Miss A were this morning made
one,
And now to the northward are speeding.
It’s said that another young couple intend,
This night to approach Hymen’s altar:
Such rash annexation ! oh where will it end 1
My heart is beginning to falter !
I called at the bookstore, but could not obtain
“ Jane Eyre ” or the “ Baronet’s Daughter,”
So I thought I would send you instead “ Now and
Then,”
And a copy of Jameß’ “ Laurel Water.”
And now, my dear cousin, I bid you adieu;
Pray give my best lovo to aunt Betty,
To unde, and Fanny, and Henry, and Sue,
And bdieve me, as ever, your HETTY.
The world was sad !—the garden was a wild!
And man, the hermit, sighed,—till woman smiled!
Campbell.
§ ® snr sa ns S3 &11ifis& &ib ¥ ©&s sis s ♦
(fclrctk of iDit.
THE DOG DAYS.
BY JOHN G. SAXE, ESQ.
“ Hot—hot—all piping hot.” —City Cries.
Heaven help us all!—in these terrific days!
The burning sun upon the earth is pelting
With his directest, fiercest, hottest rays,
And everything is melting!
Fat men, infatuate, fan the stagnant air.
In rash essay to cool their inward glowing,
While with each stroke, in dolorous despair,
They feci the fervor growing !
The lean and lathy find a fate as hard,
For all a-dry, they burn like any tinder,
Beneath the solar blafce, till wither’d, charr’d,
And crisped away to cinder!
The dogs lie lolling in the deepest shade,
The pigs are all a-wallow in the gutters,
And not a household creature —cat or maid—
But querulously mutters!
E’en stoics now are in “ the melting mood,”
And vestal cheeks are most unseemly florid,
The very zone that girts the primmest prude.
Is now intensely torrid!
“’Tis dreadful, dreadful hot!”exclaims each one
Unto his sweating, sweltering, roasting neighbor,
Then mops his brow, and pants, as he had done
A quite herculean labor !
And friends who pass each other in the street ,
Say no ‘ ‘ good morrows” when they come together,
But only mutter, if they chance to meet,
“ What horrid, horrid weather! ”
While prudent mortals curb with strictest care
All vagrant curs—it seems the queerest puzzle,
The dog-star rages, rabid, through the air,
Without the slightest muzzle!
But Jove is wise and equal in his sway,
However it seems to clash with human reason,
His fiery dogs will soon have had their day,
And men shall have a season!
[ Union Magazine.
MR. AND MRS. DOUBLEDAY.
BY CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND.
I have been frequently reminded of one of
Johnson's humorous sketches. A man return
ing a broken wheelbarrow to a Quaker, with
“ Here, I’ve broke your rotten wheelbarrow,
usin’ on ’t. I wish you’d get it mended right
off, ’cause I want to borrow it again this af
ternoon.” The Quaker is made to reply,
“ Friend, it shall be done ;” and I wish 1 pos
sessed more of his spirit.
But I did not intend to write a chapter on
involuntary loans ; I have a story to tell.
One of my best neighbours is Mr. Philo
Doubleday, a long, awkward, honest, hard
working Maine-man, or Mainiote, I suppose
one might say; so good-natured, that he might
be mistaken for a simpleton ; hut that must be
by those that do not know him. He is quite
ail old settler, came in four years ago, bring
ing with him a wife, who is to him as vine
gar-bottle to oil-cruet, or as mustard to the su
gar, which is used to soften its biting quali
ties. Mrs. Doubleday has the sharpest eyes,
the sharpest liQse, the sharpest tongue, the
sharpest elbows, and, above all, the sharpest
voice, that ever “penetrated the interior” of
Michigan. She has a tall, straight, bony
figure, in contour somewhat resembling two
hard-oak planks fastened together and stood
on end; and, strange to say! she was full
five-and-thirty -when her mature graces attract
ed the eye and won the affections of the wor
thy Philo. What eclipse had come over Mr.
Doubleday’s usual sagacity, when he made
choice of his Polly, I am sure I never could
guess; but he is certainly the only man in the
wide world -who could possibly have lived
with her ; and he makes her a most excellent
husband.
She is possessed with a neat devil; I have
known many such cases; her floor is scoured
every night, after all are in bed but the un
lucky scrubber, Betsey, the maid of all work;
and wo to the unfortunate “indiflidle, ” as
neighbour Jenkins says, who first sets dirty
boot on it in the morning. If men come in to
talk over road business, for Philo is much
sought when “the public” has any work to
do, or school business, for that, being very
troublesome, and quite devoid of profit, is of
ten conferred upon Philo, Mrs. Doubleday
makes twenty errands into the room, express
ing in her visage all the force of Mrs. Raddle’s
inquiry, “Is them wretches going?” And
when, at length, their backs are turned, out
comes the bottled vengeance. The sharp eyes,
tongue, elbow, and voice, are all in instant
requisition.
“ Fetch the broom, Betsey! and the scrub
broom, Betsey! and the mop, and that’ere
dish of soap, Betsey! And why on earth
did’nt you bring gome ashes ? You didn’t ex
pect to clean such a floor as this without ash-
es, did you ?”—“What time are you going to
have dinner, my dear ?” says the impertur
bable Philo, who is getting ready to go out.
“Dinner! I’m sure I don't know! there’s
no time to cook dinner in this house! nothing
but slave, slave, slave, from morning till night,
cleaning up after a set of nasty, dirty,” &c.,
&c.
“ Phew!” says Mr. Doubleday, looking at
his fuming help-mate with a calm smile,
“ It’ill all rub out when it's dry, if you'll on
ly let it alone.”
“ Yes, yes; and it would be plenty clean e
nough for you if there had been forty horses
in here.”
Philo, on some such occasion, waited till
his Polly had stepped out of the room, and
tlmn, with a hit of chalk, wrote, on the broad
black walnut mantelpiece,—
v Bolt and bar hold gate of wood,
Gate of iron springs make good,
Bolt nor spring can bind the flame,
Woman’s tongue can no man tame,”
and then took his hat and walked off.
This is his favourite mode of vengeance,
—“ poetical justice,” as he calls it; and, as
he is never at a loss for a rhyme of his own
or other people’s, Mrs. Doubleday stands in
no small dread of these efforts of genius. Once,
when Philo’s crony, James Porter, the black
smith, had left the print of his blackened
knuckles on the outside of the oft-scrubbed
door, and was the subject of some rather se
vere remarks from the gentle Polly, Philo, as
he left the house with his friend, turned and
wrote, over the offended spot, —
“ Knock not here !
Or dread my dear, —P. D.”
and the very next person that came was Mrs.
Skinner, the merchant’s wife, all dressed in
her red merino, to make a visit. Mrs. Skin
ner, who did not possess an unusual share of
tact, walked gravely round to the hack door,
and there was Mrs. Doubleday up to the eyes
in soap making. Dire was the mortification,
and point blank were the questions, as to how
the visiter came to go round that way; and
when the warning couplet was produced in
justification, we must draw a veil over what
followed, as the novelists say.
Sometimes these poeticals came in aid of
poor Betsey; as once, when on hearing a
crash in the little shanty-kitchen, Mrs. Dou
bleday called, in her shrillest tones, “ Betsey !
what on earth’s the matter ?” Poor Betsey,
knowing what was coming, answered, in a
deprecatory whine, “ The cow’s kicked over
the buckwheat batter!”
When the clear, hilarous voice of Philo,
from the yard where he was chopping, in
stantly completed the triplet;—
“ Take up the pieces and throw’m at her!”
for once the grim features of his spouse re
laxed into a smile, and Betsey escaped her
scolding.
Yet Mrs. Doubleday is not without her ex
cellent qualities as a wife, a friend, and a
neighbour. She keeps her husband's house
and stockings in unexceptionable trim. Her
emptins are the envy of the neighbourhood.
Her vinegar is,—as how could it fail ?—the
ne plus ultra of sharpness; and her pickles
are greener than the grass of the field. She
will watch night after night with the sick,
perform the last sad offices for the dead, or
take to her home and heart the little ones
whose mother is removed for ever from her
place at the fire-side. All this she can do
cheerfully, and she will not repay herself, as
many good people do, by recounting every
word of the querulous sick man, or the deso
late mourner, with added hints of tumbled
drawers, closets all in heaps, or awful dirty
kitchens.
I was sitting one morning with my neigh
bour, Mrs. Jenkins, who is a sister of Mr.
Doubleday, when Betsey, Mrs. Doubleday’s
“hired girl,” came in with one of the shingles
of Philo’s handiwork in her hand, which bore,
in Mr. Doubleday’s well known chalk marks,
“ Come quick, Fanny!
And bring the granny;
For Mrs. Double
day’s in trouble.”
And the next intelligence was of a fine, new
pair of lungs, at that hitherto silent mansion.
I called very soon after to take a peep at the
“latest found;” and if the suppressed delight
of the new papa was a treat, how much more
was the softened aspect, the womanized tone
of the proud and happy mother. I never saw
a being so completely transformed. She
would almost forget to answer me, in her ab
sorbed vratching of the breath of the little sleep
er. Even when trying to be polite, and to say
what the occasion demanded, her eyes would
not be withdrawn from the tiny face. Con
versation on any subject but the ever-new
theme of babies,” was out oi the question
Whatever we began upon, whirled round
sooner or later to the one point. The needle
may tremble, but it turns not with the less
constancy to the pole.
aAs I pass for an oracle in the matter of
paps and possets, I had frequent communica
tion with my now happy neighbour, who had
forgotten to scold her husband, learned to let
Betsey have time to eat, and omitted the night
ly scouring of the floor, lest so much damp
ness might he bad for the baby. We were In
deep consultation, one morning, on some im
portant point touching the well-being of this
sole object of Mrs. Doubleday’s thoughts and
dreams, when the very same little lanthe
Howard, dirty as ever, presented herself. She
sat down and stared a while without speak
ing, and Vordinaire , and then informed us, that
her mother “wanted Mrs. Doubleday to let
her have her baby for a little while, ’cause
Benny’s.” —but she had no time to finish the
sentence.
“ Lend iny baby! ! !”—and her utterance
failed. The new mother’s feelings were for
tunately too big for speech, and lanthe wisely
disappeared before Mrs. Doubleday found
her tongue. Philo, who entered on the in
stant, burst into one of his electrifying laughs,
with —
“ Ask mv Polly,
To lend her dolly !—”
and I could not help thinking, that one must
come “ West,” in order to learn a little of ev
ery thing.
©ur 330u)l of Jptmcl).
THE MODEL BABY.
It is the image of its father, unless it is the
very picture of its mother. It is the best-tem
pered little thing in the world, never crying
but in the middle of the night, or screaming but
when it is washed. It is astonishing how
quiet it is whilst feeding. It understands ev
erything, and proves its love for learning by
tearing the leaves out of every book, and
grasping with both hands at the engravings.
It is the cleverest child that w T as ever born,
and says “ papa,” or something very like it,
when scarcely a month old. It takes early
to pulling whiskers, preferring those of
strangers. It has only one complaint, and
that is the wind; hut it is frequently troubled
with it. It is the most wonderful child that
was ever seen, and would swallow both its
tiny fists, if it was not for a habit of choking.
It dislikes leaving home, rarely stopping on a
visit longer than a day. It has a strange hos
tility for its nurse’s caps and nose, which it
will clutch hold of with savage tenacity, if in
the least offended. It is never happy but in
its mother’s arms, especially if it is being
nursed by a gentleman. It prefers the floor
lo the cradle, which it never stops in longer
than it can help. It is very playful, delight
ing in pulling the table-cloth off, or knocking
the china ornaments off the mantle-piece, or
upsetting its food in somebody’s lap.
It invents anew language of its own, al
most before it can speak, which is perfectly
intelligible to its parents, though Greek to ev
ery one else. It is not fond of public enter
tainments, invariably crying before it has
been at one five minutes. It dislikes treach
ery in any shape, and repels the spoonful of
sugar if it fancies there is a powder at the
bottom of it. Medicine is its greatest horror,
next to cold water. It has no particular love
for dress, generally tearing to pieces any
handsome piece of finery, lace especially, as
soon as it is on. It inquires deeply into ev
ery thing, and is very penetrating in the con
struction of a drum,, the economy of a work
box, or the anatomy of a doll, which it likes
all the better without any head or arms. It
has an intuitive hatred of a doctor, and fights
with all its legs, and hands, and first teeth,
against his endearments. It has a most ex
traordinary taste for colors, imbibing them
greedily in every shape, especially from the
wooden tenants of Noah’s Ark, which are to
be found in the mouth of every baby. Tri
fact, there never was a child like it, and the
Model Baby proves this by surviving the thou
sand-and-one experiments of rival grannies
and mothers-in-law\ and out-living, to the ath
letic age of kilts and bare legs, the villainous
compounds of Godfrey and Dalby, and the
whole poison-chest of elixirs, carminatives,
cordials and pills, which babies are physical
ly heir to.
1 ■ 1 *—
A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE AND
SUGAR.
A Gentleman named Bull being in great
trouble and distress of mind, is anxious to be
introduced to some Casuist who will under
take to quiet his conscience. Mr. Bull is the
proprietor of certain colonial possessions de
voted to the cultivation of sugar. In these he,
some years ago, abolished Negro slavery,
from a conviction that it was barbarous and
wicked. In justice to his colonists he entered
mto an arrangement to place a prohibitive