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THE SOUTHERN WORLD, SEPTEMBER 15, 1685.
lfAKY BAYARD CLARKS. '
The following poem wm llrat published In the Ifew
South. The French Broad la tub hi vies of Western
North Carolina.
‘‘Racing Water," who can paint thee,
With thy scenery wild and grand?
It would take a magic pencil
Guided by a master hand.
Here are towering, rugged mountains,
Granite rocks all scarred and gray,
Nature’s altars whence her incense
Floats In wreaths of mist away.
At their feet thy murmuring waters,
Now are singing songs of praise,
Or In sounding notes triumphant
A majestic pean raise.
Down the canon's rocky gorges,
Now they wildly, madly sweep.
As, with laughing shout exultant,
O'er the rocks they Joyous leap.
Then In calm and limpid beauty,
Still and deep they silent How,
With the verdant bunks o’erhanglug
Pictured in the depths below.
Pulsing from the heart of Nature,
Here thy “ Warm Springs” genial gush,
There, llkestream from Alpine glacier
Down the mountain coldly rush.
Tah-kkb ohtkk—Racing Water—
Wus thy sonorous Indian name,
But as " French Broad” thou art written
On the white man’s roll of fame.
Perish that I but live the other!
For on every dancing wave
Evermore is shown the beauty,
Of the name the red man gave.
“AN OI,l» NUISANCE.”
Mind, I quote those three words. They
are none of mine. Only, thinking over three
or four equully appropriate titles, 1 chose
this one as being the oddest, and lulwuys
bad a fancy for odd things. And now for
my story.
Ou what my aunt (by marriuge) and her
founded their cluims to aristocrucy 1 could
never discover. My uncle hud been a mer
chant, it is true, and one of considerable
prominence in his day, 1 have been told,
and so hud his father before him, and his
father’s futhet before that. That iiis business
in its most prosperous times was intimately
connected with China is impressed upon my
mind (1 became an inmate of his house when
1 was about six years old, in consequence of
the deulh of both my parents within a week
of each other, leaving me witli no means of
support and no other relutive), by the fuel
that every first of Juue saw bright new mat
tings laid on our Hours, to remain there until
until cold weather came again, uud that our
mantels and whul-nots were decorated with
many pretty, dainty little porceluin cups,
thin os egg-shells—rarities in those days,
but iu these plenty und cheap enough.
“ Now, according to all 1 huve learned on
the subject, real ” Simon pure” aristocrats
look down on trade, even if on the gruudest
scale, and never huve anything to do with it
further than once in a while marrying one
of its sons or daughters who have come into
possession of millions enough to ollset the
honor. However, our family (1 venture to
include myself, none of tuy cousins being
within hearing) assumed ull the airs of the
“blue bloods” of the old country.
Kleanor, qur second, wore a look of deep
indignation for severuls days after a manly,
clever, good looking fellow, the brother of
one of her old sehool-mates, with a comfort
able income, but who was juuior partner of
a Hrm keepiug a retail store on Sixth avenue
proposed for her hand.
“The presumption of the man!” she ex
claimed, raising her arched eyebrows in as
tonishment, curling her full.red upper lip
in scorn; “to imagine for a moment that
because 1 honored him with my compuny to
the opera two or three times, 1 would marry
him. If his business had beuu wholesale, it
would have been bud enough ; but fancy a
person whe sells pins and needles by the pa
per, and lace by the yard I Never I I would
die first.”
Minerva, fourth, was equally horror-strick
en at the effrontery of a young book-keeper
whom her brother Lawrence had introduced
into the family circle—a rare thing for one
of her broihers to do, for like all other men,
as far as my limited experience goes, they
scarcely ever thought their companions to
be good enough to be the companions of
their sisters—when he ventured to express
bis admiration for her. The young man
soon after succeeded to a very handsome
property, end became a great swell—“a per
fect too-too,” as I believe the fashionable
way of expressing it now—a kind of being
after Minerva's own heart; but then she was
never Invited to ride behind bis fast horse,
and wha* was much worse, never again asked
to take the head of his table.
And in like manner the graceful and en
thusiastic professor of music, the stout,
good-natured proprietor of the extensive
iron works (“wholesale and retail”) on the
next block, the young artist, who has since
risen to wealth and fame, and sundry others,
all falling short of the aristocratic standard
set up by our family, were snubbed by my
lady cousins, aided by their brothers, and
not wholly unassisted by their mother.
I never had at the time this story com
mences—being then in my eighteenth year—
a chance to snub any one; for, lacking the
personal attractions of ray relatives, as well
os their “high-toned” natures—truth to tell,
having decidedly democratic tendencies—I
was kept in the background on all occa
sions.
Let it be remarked in passing that Eleanor
eventually married, when rather an old girl,
a widower in the milk business—very whole
sale, however—the father of four children.
At the same time Minerva, a few years
younger, deigned to become the wife of an
elderly bachelor, something or other in a
shoe manufactory. But they held their
heads as high as ever, and declared they had
sacrificed themselves for the family, uncle
having failed for the second time—through
no fuult of his own, dear old man—a few
mouths before the double wedding.
That their "sacrifice” was for the good of
the family I don’t deny; but there were left
at home to be taken care of three old maids,
a young one, and two helpless young men
who, brought up to do nothing, did it to
perfection.
After the failure, uncle got a situation as
superintendent of one of the many depart
ments in the large establishment of the gen-
man who sold “ pins and needles by the pa
per and lace by the yard” (he was now head
of the firm, and had a pretty, lady like wife,
and two pretty children), and we dismissed
one of oursevants, and wereobliged to move
into a smaller bouse.
But, in spite of ull our efforts at economy,
our income proved vastly inadequate to our
expenses, and this was the cause of so much
bewailing und bemoaning that our bouse
seemed to be bereft of all gladness and sun
shine. And one evening, after Ethel, our
youngest daughter, had burst into tears be
cause aunt hud declared it would be impossi
ble to have ice cream, wine jellies andsimilar
dainties every day for desert, for the suffi
cient reason that we could not afford them,
1 ventured to suggest to the weeping damsel
that if she found life positively unbearable
without the above mentioned luxuries (ail
the Egberts, by the way, were extravagantly
fond of good things to eat), she might knit
and crochet some of the worsted articles she
was in the habit of making so artistically for
ncrself, and sell them to—Mr. Lee, uncle’s
employer, 1 wus ubout to say, when I was
interrupted by a shrill shriek.
"Work forusturel” she cried. “I would
starve first.”
“You wretched girl!” added my aunt
“How can you even think of such a thing?
Ethel, my durling, culm yuurself.”
"It is not enough that strangers should
presume upon our poverty,” joined in Cle-
anthe, also frowning upon me, “but one
bound to us by the ties of blood, though it
must be confessed more alien than many a
stranger would be, must advance ideas that
shock and wound us 1 imagine”—turning
ing to tier brother, Kuluud, who lay on the
only lounge in the room, complacently re
garding hituself in the mi rror on the opposite
wall—” thut impertinent Mrs. Bradshaw
coming here this morning, with the air of
doing a kindness, to offer me a position as
teacher in her academy 1”
"Great heavens!” exclaimed Roland,
springing to his feet—and the cause must be
a mighty one that brings Roland to hU feet.
"One of my sisters a teacher I Great heavens 1”
and he went stamping about the room in the
new suit of clothes aunt hud just paid for by
parting with her handsome pearl ring.
“ Whatever is done, we can do nothing,”
sobbed Ethel.
“Of course not,” replied Roland, grandly;
" the women of our fan\ily never work.”
I thought to myself, “Nor the men either,
except poor old uncle, who is fagging at a
desk from morning until night.”
" But our income must be iucreased,” said
Alethea, looking up from her novel, and
joining in the conversation for the first time.
Alethea was our eldest, and still wore her
hair in the fashion of her youth, a loose curl
dangliug over each cheek-bone, being fully
persuaded that no other fashion was half so
becoming or graceful.
" Discharge the chambermaid,” proposed
Ethel, “and let Dorothea” (I am Dorothea)
“ do her work. It is about all she it fit for.
She never had a bit of fine feeling or style
about her.”
“No, she never bad; she always would
bite her bread,” sighed aunt, "and she has
seemed sadly out of place among my chil
dren. She comes of a working race, and her
ideas and tastes smack of trade, trade,
trade.”
I discovered in after years that my aunt’s
grandmother on the maternal side made a
fortune out of tobacco.
"But discharging the chambermaid won’t
help very much,” said Alethea.
“ It will not," agreed Roland. “ What is
saved thereby will no more than find me in
the little extras no society tnan can do with
out.”
“Dear! dear!” aunt took up the burden
again, “could I have forseen that your father
would have come down in this way, I never
would have married him. I really don’t
know what is to be done, unless we emigrate
to some country where weare unknown, and
where it don’t matter how or in what style
we live."
“The country!” screamed her children
in chorus. “ Better die at once!”
I can’t imagine where I got the courage to
do so after my late sharp rebuffs, but at this
moment I blurted out something that had
been in my inlnd for several weeks,—
“ Why could not Alethea and Ethel room
together, and Alethea’s room, which is the
pleasantest iu the house, be lettoa lodger?—
one who would—’’
But here I paused abruptly. Alethea had
fainted in the arms of my aunt, who, glanc
ing at me over the top of her eldest daught
er's head, commanded tne in her deepest
tone (aunt has rather a boss voice) to leave
the room instantly.
But in a short time, during which things
bad been getting worse and worse, and we
had been reduced to rice puddings for des
sert on week days and apple tarts on Sun
days, I was allowed to prepare on advertise
ment for the morning paper, in which was
offered to “an elderly gentleman, who must
have excellent references, a fine room in the
house of a family of refinement, who have
never before taken a lodger; Tor the privil
ege of occupying which lie would be expect
ed to pay a liberal equivalent."
I disapproved highly of the wording of
this call for help, but my aunt and cousins
insisted upon its being couched in these
very terms, and so I was compelled to yield,
inwardly convinced thut it would bring no
reply.
But it did. The very afternoon of the
morning it appeared in the paper, a carriage
with a trunk strapped on behind drove up
to our door. An old gentleman got out, hob
bled up our steps, and rang our door-bell.
“You must see him, Dorothea,” said my
aunt, leaving the parlor, followed by a train
of her children. " It is your affair ultogeth.
er. I will have nothing to do with it.”
“ We none of us will have anything to do
with it,” chimed in tny cousins. “We were
not born with the souls of boardinghouse
keepers;” and away they sailed as I opeued
the door to the second—a little louder than
the first—ring of the caller.
He wus short, slightly formed old gentle
man, with big, bright black eyes, bushy eye
brows and a long white mustache and
beard.
“ You have a room to let? ’’ lie asked.
“ l have,” I answered, ushering him into
the parlor, where he glanced keenly
around, and then as keenly into my face,
while he announced inu decisive tone,—
“ I have come to take it. My luggage is
at the door. Be so kind as to tell me where
to direct the man to carry it."
"But—” 1 began in a hesitating way, ut
terly confused by the stranger s brusque,
nut to say high toned, muuner.
“ 1 But me no huts,’ " quoted the old gen
tleman. “ 1 am Autos Urilttn, lately from
England, where 1 have been living for the
lust twenty years. Since I landed in New
York,a month ago to-day,1 have been board-
ingnt the St. Nicholas. But where is your
mother? ”
I hastened to assure him that I was em
powered to negotiate with him.
“Ah, indeed! Well, then, I’ll go on,
though it appears to me you are rather
young for the business. You ‘ have never
taken a lodger before.’ I am glad of it, for
reasons which it is not necessary to explain.
You want a ‘liberal equivalent’ for your
fine room; lam prepared to give It. That
leaves only one thing to be arranged. I
should like nty breakfast at eight precisely
every morning.”
“ Bit we do not propose to give break
fast.”
“I know you didn’t; but I’ll give you an
other ‘liberal equivalent’ for it. You can’t
be very well off, or you wouldn’t take a
lodger; and the more liberal equivalents
you can get from him the better. Will you
be kind enough to showme to tomy room?”
“ Yes sir,” I replied meekly, completely
succumbing to the big black eyes and strong
will power of the frail looking old man, and
totally forgetting to ask for the "references”
insisted upon in the advertisement. Where
upon he stepped to the front door and beck
oned to the man outside, who, the trunk
upon his back, followed him, as he followed
me, to the second story front room,
“ Ah,” said our lodger, as he entered it,
“ this is not bad—not at all bad.”
And it wasn’t As I have said before, It
was the pleasantest room in the house, and
I had arranged it as prettily as I could with
the means at my command. Fortunately
this included a number of nice engravings
and vases, and a capacious bamboo chair
with a crimson cushion, and a footstool of
like color. And the fragrance of the honey
suckles that stole in at the window from the
balcony, and the two or three sunbeams that
had found their way through the half closed
blinds, and danced in triumph on the wall,
and a half-dozen gayly bound books (mine)
on the mantle, and the ivy growing from a
red pot on the bracket in the corner, all
combined to make the room a pleasant place
indeed.
Mr. Griffin had been our lodger exactly
two years, during which I had prepared and
superintended the serving of his breakfast,
and taken the entire charge of his room "as
well as if I had been brought up to that aotl
of thing,” as my cousinCleanthe remarked;
and the rest of the family, with the excep
tion of uncle, who became quite friendly
with him, had only met him some dozen
times—at which times they assumed their
most dignified dignity—when he was sud
denly taken sick.
“ It’s an old complaint which will carry
me off sometimes,” he said to me, “ but I
hope not this time. Anyhow, Little Hon
esty,” (a name he had given me from the
first—I hope 1 deserved it I) “ to live or die,
I intend to remain here.. Nowhere else
could I be as comfortable. You must en
gage an extra servant, and you and she to
gether must nurse me. I should certainly
die with a professional. By-the-by, who is
your family physician?”
I told him.
“ If 1 am not better, send for him to-mor
row. I ant going out—only a few steps,”
meeting my look of surprise* “I want to
see my lawyer, and 1 sha’n’t take my bed
for several days yet.”
That afternoon, taking care not to repeat
the old gentleman's exact words, but put
ting bis remarks in the torm of a request to
be allowed to remain, 1 stated the case to
the family.
“Going to be ill!” exclaimed Alethea.-
“Dear me! how disagreeable!”
“I'm sure I don’t want him to stay; he
might die here,” said my aunt, who had the
utmost horror of death.
"He’s an old nuisance anyhow,” pro
claimed Ethel, “and always has been,and
1 blush that any relative of mine should de
grade herself so far as to become his servant
maid.”
Here I will mention that my cousin Ro
land, a few weeks before this, bad married
a young lady with a large fortune, and'out
of this fortune he generously proposed to
make the family a liberal yearly allowance,
besides which came many gifts from the
married sisters, whose husbands had pros-
pered, and thereupon had been obliged by
their wives to share their prosperity with us,
thut we might live at least, as Minerva ex
pressed it, “with elegant economy." And
so we were not entirely depeudent upou our
lodger for deserts and several other things.
But to go back.
“ He Ib not an old nuisance," said I, indig
nantly. “He is a kind-hearted old man
and I am very fond of him.”
" Good gracious! ”
"Yes, Miss Ethel," I went on, “I repeat
it I am very fond of him. And if my aunt
will allow me—I am sure my uncle will—I
will take all the extra care resulting from
his sickness, upon myself, and no one else
shall be annoyed in the least. After living
beneath our roof for two years and contrib
uting so bountifully to our comforts—yon
needn't glare at me Cleanthe; he has, for I
am quite certain r.o one else would have
paid us so liberally—it would be the basest
ingratitude, not to say cruelty, to send him
among strangers now that he most needs
care and kindness.”
“ Are you quite through, Miss Reynolds? ”
asked my aunt, sarcastically. “I had no
idea you were so eloquent, never having
beard you preach before. But on one thing
I am determined—you shall not call in our
doctor to your patient He is a perfect aris
tocrat and has no idea we keep a lodger, and
I do not wish him to know it”