GERMANY AND BELGIUM.
Martin sed he shouldn’t think of travellin’ in Germany, as he had made a very exhaustive study of the country on a visit he’d paid it some years before. I knew Alice had been there two years, a-stayin’ with a Miss Ponsione, a music-teacher, as nigh as I could make out, a kind of foreign creeter, I guess.
Sez he, “I gave more exhaustive attention to Germany than to any other country in Europe, and I would not wish to make a needless expenditure of time there.”
Sez I, “Martin, how long a time did you stay in Germany?”
“Over a week,” sez he.
Wall, thinkses I, accordin’ to his idees that is considerable of a time. Alice, of course, didn’t care to stay there long, as she had stayed there all durin’ her vacations, and took excursions all over the country with that Miss Ponsione and her folks; there seemed to be a hull lot of ’em, all girls, as nigh as I could make out.
And it wuz from her that I learnt that her Pa had fell and sprained his ankle and hurt his head, and wuz bed-sick all the time he wuz in Germany; he wuzn’t able to lift his head from the piller, and so I guess it wuz ruther exhaustin’ study he gin to it. But I wanted to see the Rhine—I wanted to see “Fair Bingen on the Rhine,” I wanted to like a dog, and I told Alice so.
But she said Bingen looked jest about like any other city. And come to think on’t, I spoze it wuz the homesick longin’ for his own country that made the “Soldier of the Legion” want to see it so bad, and made its seenery seem fairer and lovelier, and made its moonlight fairer and brighter than that which looked down on that fur-off battle-field, where his body lay, and his homesick sperit a-wanderin’ off to “Fair Bingen on the Rhine.”
I eppisoded this to Josiah, and he sez with a sad look on his face—he wuz awful beat out, and his corns ached fearful—“Yes, that is it, I feel jest so; I could talk jest as melogious and affectin’ this minute about ‘Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
Sez I, “You may feel jest as bad, Josiah, but you can’t write sech poetry as that.”
“Whattle you bet?” sez he, a-settin’ the bottle of liniment on the stand; he’d been tryin’ to irrigate them corns of hisen and quell ’em down some. “Whattle you bet I can’t?”
Sez I mildly, “That Soldier of the Legion wuz dyin’ in Algiers.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I’m a-dyin’ in France; what’s the difference?”
Sez I, “His talk about his distant home is enough to make anybody weep.”
“Home!” sez he. “Can’t I talk about home? Why,” sez he, “if I should swing right out into poetry and describe my feelin’s, nobody would look at that soldier’s verses agin, if I should let myself out and tell the beauties of Jonesville, and what we’ve been through sence we left its blessed presinks; why that soldier didn’t begin to know what trouble wuz. He wuz a single man,” sez he.
“NO ATTENTION PAID TO RUMATIZ, OR MEAL TIMES, OR CORNS.”
I looked coldly at him, and he hastened to add with a deep groan, “Oh, what hain’t we been through, in verse or out on’t—what hain’t we been through! two old folks snaked through Europe by a Martin and Fashion; no attention paid to rumatiz, or meal times, or corns, or anything, and one of them dum old fools,” sez he impressively, and in a kind of a rhymin’ axent, “wuz born in Jonesville—‘fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
I wuz born myself pretty nigh the town of Lyme, jest over the line, but I wouldn’t contend.
Sez he, “I could make up hull books of poetry on our tower better than hisen, enough sight.”
“No you can’t, Josiah,” sez I; “jest think of them beautiful messages he sent back to them distant friends of hisen; it hain’t in you to write like that.”
“Wall, it is in me, mom; and messages! Gracious Peter! couldn’t I send messages back? Couldn’t I send heart-breakin’ messages to the children, and Ury, and Philury, and Deacon Henzy, and Uncle Sime Bentley, and the rest of the meetin’-house bretheren—couldn’t I send word to ’em—
“When they meet and crowd around
The horse-block by the meetin’-house, that dear old talkin’ ground?
“Couldn’t I warn the hull caboodle on ’em to stay where they be, in that beautiful, beautiful place; to never traipse a million milds from home on a tower? Let ’em hear my dyin’ words to stay where they be. Oh, what volumes I could say to them companions and friends if I could git holt of their ears once! I wouldn’t want ’em to think I wuz rambelous and back slid—no, I would want ’em to know I felt like sayin’ in these last hours that—
“‘I am a married man and not afraid to die.’”
I looked dretful cold at him; I hain’t no idee what he meant, if he meant anything, and he hastened to add—
“If they hain’t dum loonaticks and crazy as loons they’ll stay where they be,” sez he, in that same rhymin’ axent—
“They’ll stay right there in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
Sez I, “That hain’t poetry, Josiah.”
“Wall, it’s good solid horse sense, the hull of it, and the last line is poetry.”
Sez I, “One line don’t make poetry.” I wuz sorry I said it, for he turned his eyes up towards the ceilin’ in deep thought a minute, and then he kinder recited out in blank verse, or considerable blank, though it rhymed some—
“A leadin’ man of Jonesville lay dyin’ in—”
He hesitated for a minute, and seemed to be lookin’ round the room for a word, and finally his eye fell onto his feet—he had jest drawed his boot on agin, and I spoze the pain wuz fearful, but it seemed to gin him an idee—and he begun agin—
“A leadin’ man of Jonesville lay dyin’ in his boots,
There wuz dearth of rest and intment, or food, or healin’ roots;
But his pardner sot beside him—”
Here he gin me a witherin’ look; I spoze I wuz a-smilin’ some. He can’t write poetry, that man can’t, and mebby I showed my knowledge of the fact in my mean.
“His pardner sot beside him, a-jeerin’ at his woe,
And unto her he faintly sed, in axents wan and low,
‘I’ve a message and a groan or two, to send most any time,
To distant friends in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.’”
Yes, I wuz sorry enough I mentioned that poem, for before night that man had a hull string of verses writ off, and he recited ’em to me anon, or oftener. They went on a-recountin’ all the peace and beauty of Jonesville, and the delights of stayin’ there and takin’ solid comfort and happiness, and the tribulations two old folks went through away from that blissful spot, with their bodies moved round from place to place on a tower, and the verses most all on ’em ended with these lines, some like the melancholy accompaniment of a trombone—
“And one old fool wuz born in Jonesville,
Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
And some on ’em wuz stronger—
“And one dum old fool wuz born in Jonesville,
Fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
His axents on these last words wuz affectin’ in the extreme, and he seemed to think I ort to shed tears when he said ’em, and I didn’t know but I had ort to, but I wuz in sunthin’ of a hurry a new bindin’ a petticoat, and I thought I wouldn’t.
One verse wuz as follers, and I presoom his feelin’s about the delights of our home wuz powerful as he writ it:
“Tell Ury and Philury to joyous wash the pan,
To worship all the barn chores, adore the milky can,
The Jerseys, oh, in happier hours I driv ’em through the crick,
Oh, angel calves, oh, did I e’er hit one on ’em with a stick?
The lovely, sweet young critters might kick me time and time,
If I wuz back in Jonesville, fair Jonesville on the Lyme.”
And there wuz one to Thomas J., and one to Tirzah—
“Tell Tirzah Ann that other Pars must comfort her young age,”
etc., etc., etc., all put down jest as if he wuz in a dyin’ state; no regularity or symetry in the lines, but powerful in feelin’s. There wuz more’n twenty-one on ’em. I didn’t hear all on ’em—I wouldn’t, and we had some words.
Wall, Martin wuz sot on not goin’ to Germany, till Adrian sed he would love to see the Rhine. That settled it—the Rhine wuz seen. That man would go through fire and water if his little pardner jest motioned him that way.
And that very fact, I felt, shed a perfect halo round Martin Smith. It showed that deep down in the nater of the man, all covered up by layers of pride, worldiness, fashion, ambition, etc., there wuz a fount of pure water a-springin’; but few indeed could pierce down to it. Alice can, and Adrian can, but nobody else, so fur as I know; but that love permeates everything he sez and duz.
As wuz nateral on French sile, we got to talkin’ about poor young Prince Louis, the pride of the third Napoleon—the very heart and soul of his beautiful Ma. His sad fate seemed to impress Adrian dretfully. He wuz dretful sorry for him, and sed he wuz. Good little creeter! Any tale of sadness and sorrer found a ready sympathy in his tender, generous young breast. But Martin seemed to draw a different moral from it, and sez he, when I wuz a-tellin’ how sorry I wuz for his poor Ma, sez he—
“She ought to have looked ahead, she never ought to have allowed him to go into such danger, she ought to do as I do. I always surround my boy with safeguards to keep him out of danger’s way entirely, and therefore he is safe.”
But I sez, “Martin, in this world it is hard to tell always where danger is, and who is really safe.”
“But I know,” sez he, “because I am right with him. If he was a child of poor parentage, now, one of the masses, why, then, I grant you I could not surround him with such safeguards, but as it is Adrian is perfectly safe.”
I felt that here it wuz a good place to gin a little hint. Sez I, “Speakin’ of safeguards, Martin, have you ever put them fenders on that line of cars of yourn that they wanted you to?”
“No!” sez he, speakin’ up pretty sharp.
Sez I, “Don’t you feel that you ort to, for the sake of children whose Mas and Pas love them jest as well as you do Adrian?”
But he waived off that idee, sayin’, as usual, that it wuzn’t expected that he wuz a-goin to spend his life and fortune for the sake of the children of the masses, who, two thirds on ’em, wuz better off dead than alive.
I hate sech talk.
But he went on to prove by statisticks how they grew up to be criminals, and paupers, and Coxeyites, and the world wuz well rid on ’em if they died in childhood.
I hate sech talk. He see my feelin’s, and he went on jest as if nothin’ had been sed, and repeated that Adrian wuz perfectly safe, and that his futer wuz assured.
“Wall,” sez I, “I hope so, for he is a dretful good little boy, and smart, and I hope he will make a useful man.”
“There is no other child in the world like him,” sez Martin, “and he will have a great and successful future. I shall attend to that.”
“Wall,” I sez agin, “I hope so,” and I truly did. But I felt dubersome about thinkin’ that Martin had it all in his own hands—this is sech a queer world, and so kinder surprisin’ and changeable.
Wall, Martin wuz as good as his word, we didn’t stay long in Germany, but seein’ that Adrian wanted to see the Rhine, we sot out for it. We went through Valenciennes on the night train, which Josiah sed wuz indeed a blessin’, and he sed that Martin, in some things, did show great tax.
Sez I, “What do you mean?”
“Why, you’d been a-wantin’ to git some of that lace of theirn for a nightcap, or sunthin’, if you hadn’t been sound asleep and a-snorin’.”
I never snore, and he knows it. He is the one. I may sometimes breathe a little hard, that’s all. And I sez, willin’ to give him a woond for the onmerited snore eppisode, sez I—
“I can git some in Brussels; their lace wears like iron.”
He wuz earnest in a minute, deeply earnest. Sez he—
“If you knew, Samantha, how becomin’ your nightcaps are, and how perfectly sweet you look with the plain muslin ruffles round your dear face, you wouldn’t speak of lace.”
That “dear” touched my heart. He hadn’t used the adjective in some time. But I wouldn’t promise not to git any. I think he worried all the time we wuz in Brussels, but he needn’t. I am a good economizer, I didn’t lay out to git any—I had above a yard of good Torchon to home. I didn’t need any lace.
Godfrey D. Bouillon stood up in plain sight jest as he has been a-standin’ for a number of years, a-holdin’ up the banner of the Cross. Good, determined creeter he wuz.
Wall, we went to see public buildin’s and towers, from them one to three or four hundred feet high to more megum ones, and galleries of paintin’s, and parks and statutes; and one little statute rigged up as a kind of a fountain, I won’t say nothin’ about—the least sed the soonest mended. But it wuz a shame and a disgrace, and if I’d had my way the poor little creeter would have had at least a shirt put onto him, or I would know the reason why.
A perfect shame to behold!
In the Museum of Paintings Josiah got real skairt. He wuz kinder prowlin’ round, and he happened to see a door partly open, and it wuz nateral, so he sez, to kinder look in. But he shrunk back in extreme perterbation, and sez he—
“By Jehoshaphat, what have I done?”
Sez I, “What is it, Josiah?”
Sez he, his face as red as anything, “A woman jest dressin’ herself—she seems all broke up.”
“A WOMAN JEST DRESSIN’ HERSELF—SHE SEEMS ALL BROKE UP.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you keep out of there; you stay right by me.”
“Wall, I lay out to!” he snapped out.
Wall, I looked in myself. I had no curosity, but I felt that I had better see if my pardner had done any harm. And I see a young woman all kinder crouched together a-holdin’ her clothes round her, and I sez—
“Mom, you needn’t be afraid, my pardner wouldn’t hurt a hair of your head.”
She didn’t move a mite, but jest held her clothes, what she had on, round her, and looked at me kinder skairt. And I spoke up some louder, thinkin’ mebby she wuz deef; sez I—
“He is a deacon in the Jonesville meetin’-house, mom, and though fraxious a good deal of the time, a likely man.”
But jest at this junkter Martin come up behind me, and told me that it wuz a picter. I wuz dumbfoundered, but so it wuz. The artist, Wiertz by name, made quite a number considerable like it; dretful curous and surprisin’, but it is a sight to see ’em.
The meetin’-house of St. Gudale, with its stained glass winders, wuz extremely interestin’ to see; it is most a thousand years old, but no one would mistrust it. It looks fur better than our meetin’-house, that hain’t over fourteen years old, if it is that. But, then, it cost more.
Martin and Josiah and Al Faizi driv out to see the battlefield of Waterloo, only about six milds away. They went in a English coach with a half a dozen horses, and a bugle a-caracolin’ high and clear. I never see Josiah in better sperits.
I would have gone, too, but Alice wuzn’t well, nor Adrian nuther, and I stayed with ’em; and I wuz glad of a chance to rest my lower legs.
I spoze they had a number of emotions as they stood on that field where the Star of Austerlitz sot. I did, where I wuz a-layin’ down or a-settin’ to home. Truly to a feelin’ heart, who contemplates what high ambitions tottled over that day, and what powerful interests wuz involved, they may say truly that they carry the battlefield of Waterloo in their hearts.
I thought on’t a sight. I had read what Victor Hugo said about that battle, and Alfred Tennyson and others had said about the Duke of Wellington, a-praisin’ him up, and I had numerous feelin’s and emotions, very powerful ones, indeed, very; but I took good care of the children all the same.
There wuz one place in Brussels that I wanted to see as much as any other place I could look on offen my tower, and that wuz where Charlotte Brontë had spent those years, those quiet but dretful tragic years of her life.
So one day, when we wuz on our way home from some big palace or monument—Martin wanted to show off before us—I persuaded him to go a little out of our way to that quiet street, to the kinder old-fashioned house where the Professor ust to teach school, and some of his folks live now and keep a small school. They let us in when they found out that we wuz Americans; truly that name opens all sorts of foreign doors.
It wuz a half holiday, and they let us walk through the room where she ust to set and study, and the old-fashioned garden where she ust to walk and dream them strange dreams of hern, that afterwards charmed the world.
Though the folks here didn’t seem to think of her as I did—no, indeed! They seemed to kinder blame her for reflectin’ on ’em in her books. Still they must respect to a certain degree the memory of one that leads so many from distant lands to their out-of-the-way home, jest to stand on the floor she trod on; jest to look on the walls that rared up around that great soul.
What emotions Charlotte did have here! She had more to bear than most folks knew of—yes, indeed!
What wuz that hantin’ grief that rung her soul so that year in Brussels, that drove her, a devout Protestant, into a Catholic church, to pour out her agony in confession? Longin’ to give vent to the sorrer that without that relief wuz mebby a-urgin’ her to forgit it all in the long quiet.
Why, a pint bottle full of sweet turned bitter, must have vent gin to it or else bust.
Poor creeter! poor, little, lonesome creeter! with her intense power of lovin’, and her intenser tenderness of conscience.
Gray old city, never did one tread your streets with more need of heart pity than she who wuz swept along by her emotions that day into an alien temple, a strange altar, and a strange worship, seekin’ for rest, for help to live, which is so much harder than to die.
I know what the matter wuz—it come to me straight, but I sha’n’t tell it, it has got to be kep’.
Wall, I had a large white handkerchief with me, I took it a purpose, for I thought more’n as likely as not I should be melted into tears a-meditatin’ on her life and all she had done to delight the world, and how after her life-long struggles and her brief wedded happiness she passed away.
I THOUGHT MORE’N LIKELY I SHOULD BE MELTED INTO TEARS.
But no, this last thought kinder boyed me up—I wuz glad to know that she lay asleep by the lonely moors of Haworth. Its long purple wastes hanted by her shade forever, a sleep never to be distracted agin by her brother Patrick’s actin’ and behavin’, or her pa’s morbid idees and ways, or her own private heartache.
Little, small-boneded, great-minded creeter! how often I’ve pictered her lonesome life in that little village, shet up in oncongenial surroundin’s, her noble sperit beatin’ agin the bars of her environment; a-settin’ on lonesome evenin’s in a bare, silent room, a-pinin’ mebby for a word of sympathy, and the clasp of a comprehendin’ hand, and the great world a-praisin’ her fur off—too fur.
Or else a-walkin’ up and down in the twilight with her sisters a-plannin’ them strange stories of theirn.
And then I come back to the bare walls of the school-room at Brussels, and I presoomed that on these very bare walls we wuz a-lookin’ on Charlotte had seen stand out vivid the strong, dark face of Rochester, and the elfin figger of Jane, Shirley, Caroline, Louis and Robert Moore, the Professor—yes, indeed, she see him, I hain’t a doubt on’t—and all these wonderful characters of hern, who seemed more real friends and neighbors to me than them who live under the chimblys I can see from my own winders to home.
Good, little, bashful creeter! sech genius as you had the world will seek a good while for before it finds agin.
While these thoughts wuz a-goin’ on under my best bunnet, Martin looked round sort o’ indifferent, and sez he—
“Who wuz she, anyway—some kind of a writer?”
And I sez, “Yes.”
“Historical or poetical?” sez he.
And I sez, “Both.”
I couldn’t bring my emotions down in that place to explain, and I told the truth, anyway. Historys she wrote that always will be true as long as hearts beat and suffer. Poetry wuz in ’em, whose great rythm hants the hearts of ’em whose ears are tuned to understand the strange melodies. For no two people can ever find the same things in a book—what inspires you, and thrills your heart almost to bustin’, will slip over the head and heart of somebody else, and make no impression.
Curous, hain’t it?
A-LEADIN’ ADRIAN AND A-PLANNIN’ SUNTHIN’ WITH HIM RELATIN’ TO A WHISTLE.
Wall, we looked round for a long time—Josiah not enjoyin’ himself a bit, so fur as I could see, but a-leadin’ Adrian and a-plannin’ sunthin’ with him relatin’ to a whistle he could make out of a stick.
Alice’s soft eyes held sweetness and compassion, but she owned that she’d never read the books.
Al Faizi, too, wuz a stranger to ’em. But he would have enjoyed ’em if he had—he’s made in jest the right way.
Wall, Martin wuz in haste, and we left the sacred spot, leavin’ a little gift, too, in the hands of the old servant who showed us round.
Antwerp, Düsseldorf, Cologne, how they kinder swim along in my mind as I think of ’em—picters, picters, church towers, bells, gardens, steeples, music, stained-glass winders, quiet seenery, grand, impressive ditto, big carriages, dorgs harnessed up as horses.
As we noticed the number of these latter, my companion begun to lay on plans agin. Sez he—
“Take our brindle, and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury’s yeller dorg—and she’d lend her in a minute—and what a team I could rig up with a little of Ury’s help. I could take you to meetin’ to Jonesville as easy as nothin’, and how uneek we would look drawed along by a brindle and yeller dorg-team. It will, perchance, inaugerate a new era in navigation in Jonesville, and dorg-teams will be in voge.
“What a sensation we will create amongst the Jonesvillians: you in your parasol and I in my dressin’-gown, mebby. What a uneek spectacle!”
“Yes,” sez I, coldly, “when you ketch me a-ridin’ in that way, Josiah Allen, it will indeed create a sensation, for I shall be no more. It will be when my corse is senseless and cold.”
“Oh, shaw! What comfort could I take then, Samantha? It wouldn’t look very well for me to be a-enjoyin’ myself a-swingin’ out in fashion then, and I couldn’t wear the dressin’-gown or the tossels, anyway. It beats all how you love to break up all my plans for astonishin’ the Jonesvillians. You know well enough that folks when they git back from European towers always act different—more riz up like, and reminescent, and astonishin’, and everything. And you frown down all my plans, every one on ’em”; and he sithed bitterly. But I wouldn’t gin in to him, for I felt that Samantha and a dorg-team wuz not synonomous terms; no, fur from it.
Wall, in Cologne I’d been glad to bought a hull bottle of cologne, but Josiah said to his mind there wuz nothin’ on earth so sweet as the smell of caraway.
I most always do up a little sprig on’t in my handkerchief when I go to meetin’, to kinder chirk me up in my head some as the minister and my mind are a-wanderin’ up from the 12thlies to the “Finally, my dear hearers.”
“But,” sez I, attacktin’ the weakest jint in his armor, “cologne is so stylish.”
“But,” sez he, and I couldn’t scold him for sayin’ it—sez he, “don’t you remember how the caraway grew amongst the roses in the old front yard to Mother Smith’s?” Sez he, “You had a sprig of caraway in your hand the very minute I asked you to be my bride—I had a little snip on’t in my pocket when I led you to the altar, and a big vase of the white blows kinder riz up above the June roses like a halo, right there on the altar.”
He meant the cherry stand that we stood by, with curly maple draws.
Sez he, “Oh, them beautiful, holy memories! And then,” sez he, with a look of deep content, “to think of the cookies you’ve garnished with it durin’ the beautiful years of our union.” Sez he, “Nothin’ like the scent of caraway to me.”
I wuz deeply moved by the sweet and tender memories he invoked.
Oh, summer hours! oh, old front garden, lit by the settin’ sun a-shinin’ through the maples! I see it agin, I almost feel the shadders of the tall lilock bushes; I see the June roses a-shinin’ like rosy stars above the deep lush grass, and the delicate white tracery of the caraway a-hoverin’ over ’em like a snowy mist.
Oh, summer garden! oh, summer hours of life! oh, beauty and bloom, divine sadness and rapter, and rich promise of the glowin’ futer a-layin’ fur off in the distance, like the sun in the glowin’ west.
My Josiah had brung ’em all back to me. What wuz cologne or bergamot in them rapt hours?
Men are deep.
The cathedral is a sight to see. It is called one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe, and they don’t lie about it when they say it is. It wuz begun eight or nine hundred years ago, and two hundred men wuz to work at it. I wonder if they are slack. Anyway, I don’t have any idee when they lay out to finish it. I guess they are to work by the day. I know jest how they acted when they wuz to work at Josiah’s horse-barn. I believe it is better to let barns, or cathedrals, or anything else out by the job.
Wall, if I should describe jest that one enormous old meetin’-house, and what we see in it and about it, it would take a book bigger than Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs.”
I won’t try, but it wuz a sight, a sight to see—carvin’s, statutes, picters, towers, canopies, arches, altars, relicks, etc., etc., etc.
Among the most interestin’ of the relicks wuz the skulls of the three Wise Men who came to worship the infant Christ. Here their old skulls wuz shown—they sed they wuz theirn. I d’no, nor Josiah don’t, whether they wuz the Wise Men or not, and of course it wuz eighteen hundred years too late to ask ’em. No, wise as they wuz, their bones wuz on a par with the bones of the ’leven thousand virgins that we see there in another meetin’-house.
I d’no as they wuz virgins or not, or wuz massacreed, as they sed. Martin sed it wuz a perfect fraud. But I d’no either way. Anyway, there the bones wuz, a real lot of ’em.
Wall, I guess the hull on us wuz glad to git onto the little steamer that wuz to take us up the beautiful Rhine. And we found that it wuz indeed beautiful, though after bein’ on sech intimate terms as I had been with the St. Lawrence and the Hudson, I wuzn’t a-goin’ to say I had never seen any river so grand—no, indeed!