About Brunswick advertiser. (Brunswick, Ga.) 1875-1881 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 24, 1875)
JUST HOWJT IS. BY KITTY SOUTH. I am feeling ever so cross and crab bed to-day. The ancient tabby that was crouching upon the edge of the piazza, seeking to appropriate all of the waning sunshine that Old Sol grants these Indian summer days, and iviiu was rudely pushed away just now by Tom, to make room for his own pre cious climbing, is not more thoroughly at variance with fate. And yet. I am not ancient, nor am I a cal t uui 1 a fortnight at a farm-house, which the doctor prescribed for us children. The sword was given up, the purchase money lay in her grasp, when suddenly catch ing up poor, feeble Tom from the sofa, she wept over him, saying: “ Oh! Tom, how could I help it ? I wanted to keep it for you, but I could r<s4 no. I could not.” Yes, as far back as I can remember, mother has practiced self-denial and the strictest economy, and, with it all, we barely get along—simply keep soul and irether. h>he tw»* been forced to AA.V/K (uiuuui) uui am x a uai > uut x iu«*u i _ • —- - , , • i , . been jostled away from the verv ed"e of I deny me instruction in both music and a gratification which promised me quite as much satisfaction as tabby’s sunshine afforded her. Ah me! can any Euclid solve the problem of the ta xes ? Why m ust they get higher and higher with each return of pay-day, while the people who have to pay them get poorer and poorer in the very same proportion ? I shall take this opportunity now while mother has gone out (with her usual saintly pa tience and meekness) to try and arrange for the payment of this last “increased assessment,” to tell the • whole story of my wrongs. Mother thinks it unwom anly and unchristian for me to talk as I do, and she constantly reminds me of my brave father, whose endurance of wrong was as sublime as his death upon the battlements of Fort Sumter. But it is all in vain for mother to try and inculcate the martyr spirit in me. The lovely plant is not indigenous, and, un luckily, no matter how often she trans plants a healthy shoot, the soil is too foreign—it is dried up and withered without delay. Well, to begin with the beginning, mother and Tom and I constitute the family. I was four years old when father was killed, and Tom came to us some months after we had laid him be side little Allie in the church-yard. Of course, I can not recall much of the struggling, and planning which mother had to do in those vears immediately following the surrender, hut a few facts stand boldly out and can not be erased by succeeding years. I remember dis tinctly seeing her arranging and re arranging the bureau which contained articles of father’s clothing. How ten-1 derly and tearfully she did this work ! drawing; and how specially I should delight in cultivating my talent for the last accomplishment! As to the music, it is the vocal branch that I love most, and, quite independent of all masters in the art, I do sing with all my soul. This is something that a gir! can learn from the birds and the stars and the flowers, and all those things of beauty which serve to call out music. I have sung in the choir at old Trinity during the past summer, thanks to my natural gift, and though no pay accompanied it, still a constant improvement in my vocalization has been the result. And how, since I have acquired a little no toriety in this line, Mrs. Beaumont, over the way, has asked me to join the choral union. I have attended two of these meetings, and think that I shall go quite regularly this winter; that is, as long as my brown merino is present able. About Tom’s education, mother has to bear sore disappointment. The boy is by no means a fair specimen of the genus. He is very clever in mathe matics—the first in his class at the academy—but his specialty is ornithol ogy. His collection of birds would please Audubon himself; it is really quite wonderful, considering his limited resources. To give him advantages for the perfecting of this bent of mind; to place him where he could be fitted for usefulness and distinction in this de partment has been the dream with mother and Tom for six years or more. But I am beginning to think that this hope, like many others, is but anjwpiw fatum that leads you on but to deceive. Tom is now in his fifteenth year, and without the coveted advantage pre- There seemed something almost sooth- sen Jf. itself P rett ) r 80011 > il can avail him ing in arranging those drawers—some ! not “ In .£ to mother and me. He told us last night that he had been assigned to the first desk at Coleman’s, which promo tion gives a decided addition to his pay. Frank’s taste about ladies’ dress is ex cellent, and he admires a ’ black silk more than anything else. He hap pened to mention last night that the Moores invited him to spend Tuesday evening with them, and that he found them so very agreeable as a family. Query: When Mabel gets her silk, will they not invite him around again, and wiix he not find them still more agreeable? v Of course, Frank is noth ing special to me, but I would enjoy so much having opinion of my silk, and hearing him say if I did really look like an empress. Besides, I know he likes Mabel better than any of the girls in the town except myself, and I can not for the life of me help thinking that when she wears her “dimpling silk,” as the poet styles it, and I, as usual, my brown merino (with the over skirt lengthened, of course) she may outrank me with him. But here comes mother, with her face a shade paler, and those two lines be tween her brows deeper than when she went out, so I know she has had to make a sacrifice of that one hundred dollars which she has accumulated, al most cent by cent, to give me that dress, and she must not know that I have been all this while talking about my troubles. Well, I must say— “The hopes of youth fall thick in the blast;” and if Frank goes much to the Moores’ this winter, and takes Mabel to the Choral Union oftener than he takes me will it not be that she looks so elegant in her silk, and I look so old-timey in my brown merino?—Sunny South. SUBMISSION. The sparrow sits and sings, and sings; Softly the sunset's lingering light Lies rosy over rock and turf, And reddens where the restless surf Tosses on high its plumes of white. Gently and clear the sparrow sings, While twilight steals across the sea, And still and bright the evening star, Twinkles above the golden bar That In the West lies quietly. Oh, steadfastly the sparrow sings, And sweet the sound, and sweet the'touch Of wooing winds; and sweet the sight Of hapny nature’s deep delight In the fair spring desired so much! But while so clear the sparrow sings. A cry ot death is in my ear; The crashing of ihe riven wreck, Breakers that sweep the shuddering'deek, And sounds of agony and fear. Jfow is it that the birds can sfng ? Life is so full of bitter pain: Hearts are so wrung with hopeful grief: Woe is so long and ioy so brief; Nor shall the lost again return. Though rapturously the sparrow sings, No bliss of nature can restore The friends whose hands I clasped so warm, Sweet souls that through the night Jand storm Fled from the earth for evermore. Yet still the sparrow sits and sings, Till longing, mourning, sorrowing love, Groping to find what hope may be Within death’s awful mystery, Beaches its empty arms above. And, listening, while the sparrow sings, And soft the evening shadows fall, Sees through the crowding tears that blind, A little light, and seems to find And clasp God’s hand, who wrought it all. A SIGH. flow can I live, roy love,' so far from thee, Since far from thee my spirit droops and dies? What is there left, giy love, for me to see. Since lieauty is concentrated in thins eyes? My only life is sending thee my sighs, Which, as sweet birds fly home from deserts lone, Fly swift to thee as each swift moments flies, Uprising from the current of my moan. But closed is still thy heart of stone. And my poorsighsdrop murdered at thy feet ; For which while 1 in grief do sigh and groan, New hosts arise to meet a death so sweet. Then, love, give scorn; for if love thou didst give, How could I love thee in thy sight and live? Virginia Vaughn. association of happy home-life, and a lovelight would come into the eyes even through the ini: t. But when she would open the trunk which contained his wearing apparel while in the service, where each article represented hard ship, separation and death, oh ! what a a burst of wild weeping and moaning ensued! I always dreaded to see her unlock that trunk. It was not long before mother had to part with one after another of these ar ticles, so sacred in her eyes, in order to procure the means of subsistence. I remember at first it was a fearful trial to do this, and the usual result was one of her terrible headaches, which is only another name for an illness. But grad ually that strength which is born of suffering in a woman of mother’s mould came to her, and she disposed of father’s clothing, and many, many other things which were sacred and dear, with won derful calmness, often resting her hand on my head, as I stood beside her, and saying, “ Only for you children can Ido this.” Once after this only do I remem ber seeing her give way entirely to her fpclincrs, and vices when q enormous price, in our jioor, confeder ate eyes, was offered for father’s sword, which was imported and prized as a Damascus blade. We had a very hard winter; both Tom and I had been ill with tedious typhoid attacks. The hills of physi cians, apothecary and grocer, beside the debt incurred for fuel, which was no small item, from months of constant fires, were all unpaid. The price of fered for the sword was enough to meet all these expenses, besides leaving a urplus sufficient to defray our stay for And now hack to my cross and crab bed self. I can to-day ejaculate with Cardinal Wolsey: “Vain pomp and glory of this world. I hate yc.” But not from the same sublime eleva tion of that great man, I hate the pomp and glory because I desirt: them so much anti can not get them. Recall my previous reference to the brown me rino dress, and you have the key to my Pandora’s box. Let me whisper in your ear that I have dreamed of and pined for a black silk suit for lo! these two years. And just at this very time, above all others, I have wanted it, and, what is better, there actually seemed a probability of getting it until this last tax bill loomed up. And now my black silk is to be swallowed up by this cormorant, the internal revenue man— may it choke him until he is the color of my hopes and my silk. Yes, I wished that suit above all things this winter, because Mabel Moore, my near est. friend, is to have one, and because —because—I might as well confess it, Frank said I would look positively ma jestic in n silk robe; that I was already s^ii'.'ecidy-lookbig girl, and that with tins? nu*uaoi!, J ivuiili! innk nothing ics? than an empress. Frank seems very fond of Tom; and yet hs is more than five years older; at any rate, he is con- , , . i i . i, stantly dropping in and asking about body without a soul; but that the slight- his last specimens of birds, bringing est intrusion of pretension or assertion House Decoration. House decoration has only within the last ten years been studied as an art in even the large cities of this country. It is no wonder, therefore, that the mass of householders have scarcely as yet learned its alphabet. Before they be gin to learn it we would suggest two or three maxims so apparent as to he plat itudes; the first of which is, that beauty, while it begins in cleanliless, by no means ends there; and, secondly, that it has no inborn relation whatever to the style or fashion; thirdly, that in default of good models, nature is the best teacher, although we confess it re quires some culture or a native gift of insight to understand her lessons. The farm-house builder, with his unlimited swash of white paint, could have learned some truths from the woods, or even the well-tramped road beside him. He will nowhere in nature find permanent, glaring, white coloring, in masses. The hue of the earth, pale grays, browns, yellows, may give him a hint of a base of color for his walls; and for their re lief, the darker shades of the moss, or weeds, which he may.study on any damp stone or fence-rail. The peculiar grat ification to the eye given by the price less work of Turkish and Persian looms is caused by precisely the same combi nation of colors as those of the lichen in October on the bark of an old tree. It is a popular rule, too, with house keepers, more ambitious than aesthetic in their tastes, to buy a carpet or wall paper, which of itself “furnishes” a room. Nature, as they may see by looking out of the window, has chosen her carpet and drapery of quiet monot onous tints, to serve as a background for small and tine effects, little more than suggest this subject to readers, with the remark that a room without a well-marked meaning is him a book, or even a slip from, a news paper, or something bearing upon his specialty. We have always lieen inti mate with Frank’s family, but I never remember his coming so often to our hopse as he does now, and Is of course more companionable. Frank is a handsome fellow, and is always so jHilite pretension of wealth into that meaning only gives vulgarity as a soul to the body, and makes it offensive, when it might have been on dull.—Scribner's Monthly. Children grow so fast we must lie on the alert, or they will escape much of our instruction, getting that of others, often deleterious, as children will learn. Society Warnings. Lady Blanche Murphy writes in the Galaxy on the “ London Marriage Market ” saying: “ A sad sight in Lon don society are the men or women of half a dozen seasons, disenchanted of their first genuine delight in mere amusement, and disappointed in then- hope of a “good marriage.” They remind one of the statue of salt which Lot left in the wilderness, its blank face turned wearily to the city whence no more good could come. The un dignified position of these veterans is hidden from themselves—at least let as hope so—-although apparent to all others. They generally go by some nickname among their acquaintance, and as years go on the chains of habit become heavy on them, and when they would be glad to drop out of the ranks, somehow they cannot make up their minds to do so. How often have we seen such people. They would have been delighted if chance had torn them out of the silly round of parties and balls, and dropped them in a quiet Richmond or Hampstead cottage, smothered in vines, and set in a meadow with a few shade trees and a brook near by. But they will never have the nerve to put thems,elves there, and break with the longing habits of their set. They must go on, making the most of their chance invitations to other men’s tables, other women’s houses; they struggle on, spending on their dress and social appearance the little fortune which in the ideal cottage would not only keep them comfortably, hut also provide them with a charming and in tellectual companion in the shape of a hasband or wife. A great deal of non- „ r - , sense has been talked in England nhnut Wecandoi u . c :. lipc£5ibility of iiv ;, lg on thrcc hundred a year; but among scores the man or woman could prove what non sense it really i^. Even in America, where living is dearer, a man and his wife can live on 61,500 a year, and lx? comfortable. A great many of these surface ornaments of society of whom we have been speaking, especially men, could live a happy, pleasant, cosy life, full of interest and full of work, on the same sum which now barely keeps them at their club and chambers, and just pap their tailor’s bill.
