Besides the Japanees, a very distinguished party had been invited to go with me, and I couldn't help but feel the whole thing a triumph.

There was Postmaster-General Creswell, with a head of hair and a beard that warmed you, it was so silky and bright. There was his wife, too, a real pretty creature, with manners as sweet as her face; and Mrs. Fish, almost a mate for a lady I will not name for queenliness; and Governor Cook with his wife. Besides these, there were lots of young people, and old people, and middle-aged people, filling car after car, till we had a whole train all to ourselves. The party was large, but so is a genuine New England heart, and I managed to make them all welcome in an off-handed, queenly way, which I hope was understood. It certainly was by Mr. Iwakura, who lifted his stovepipe hat and bowed like a native Vermonter before he sat down.

Sisters, I do think there is a meaning in that—a Japanee isn't likely to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience, but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy chill of Christian reserve, unless—the thing is possible, for, to love, all things are so—that heathen should adopt our religion with the stovepipe hat.

There was a thing that troubled me a good deal before I came away from the hotel that morning. I have been told that Mr. Grant and our Vermont statesman have got up a little spirit of rivalry about being President—a thing I never dreamed of, they seemed such good friends, and, till now, I thought Mr. Grant had kind of half invited his old friend to take the chair. But it isn't so by any manner of means, and I'm afraid there may be some little dispute about it in the end, which will be unpleasant to those who like them both.

Now, sisters, here comes in the benefit of being a female, which is great in such perplexing cases. Female women are not expected to be consistent, and they're not expected to take sides for any great length of time. They can just climb any fence that comes handy, and sit on it with the dignity of hen turkeys at sundown if they have a mind to, and no one has a right to scare them up. But, considering myself as an exceptional female, whose duty it is to have ideas, I scorn the fence, and come right up to the crib, corn or no corn.

It is a duty I owe to the State, and from that I shall never turn aside. Besides—I own it boldly—in this case duty and a hilarious state of pleasure unite and make me jubilant as a Fourth of July salute. I like Greeley because he is first-rate as an author, an editor, and a man. I admire Grant as a brave soldier and as a man too, but then, the old State! I don't care who knows it—from this day out, white is my color.

But, feeling this in my very bones, how could I accept the great national compliment of a special train filled with admiring friends from the Government, which is General Grant?

I spoke of this to Cousin Dempster, and, says he:

"This makes no difference in the world. Take all you can from the Government. That is high patriotism."

I shook my head.

"Cousin," says I, "it kind of seems to me that this special train is a sort of a trap. How can I, a free-born Vermonter—national in some respects, and brimming over with first-class patriotism, but Vermont to the back-bone—first and foremost, lead off a party like this, one car choke full of Mr. Grant's cabinet people. Now, if Mr. Greeley and Mr. Grant should rile up against each other—which I hope they won't—don't you see that I am in an awful mixed position?—the National Government on one side with that stupendous soldier at the head, and that great white-hatted Vermonter on the other?"

"That is, you want to be neutral," says Dempster.

"Well, yes—kind of neutral," says I, "and a little for both."

"Not exactly on the fence, but cautious," says he; "keep your boat in harbor till the tide rises and the wind blows, then hoist sail and catch up with the old craft that has been tugging on in shallow water?"

"No," says I, feeling the old Puritan blood beginning to boil up. "That may answer for some people, but not for me. An idea has just struck me; a woman's political ideas should be suggested, not proclaimed."

Without speaking another word, I put on my things, went right down to Pennsylvania Avenue, and bought a soft white hat, a little broad in the brim, which I turned up on one side. Then I went into a milliner's store, carrying it in my hand, and made a woman curl a long white feather over the crown, which gave the whole affair a touch of the beehive, stamping it with beautiful femininity.

With this hat on my head, and a double-breasted white jacket over my black alpaca, I took my honored place in the cars that day.

Of course I sat in the cabinet car, feeling myself the sole representative of Vermont in that august company. The ladies looked at me sidewise when I came in; some of the cabinet men half winked at each other and tried to smile. But that white hat was no laughing matter, and they wilted down before it.



LXIII.

AMONG THE CADETS.

Dear sisters:—The train started, and there I sat in my glory till we got to Annapolis, just the sleepiest town, crowded full of the oldest houses and the slowest people that I ever saw in my born days. Some colored persons were dawdling around the depot, and a few lazy white folks passing down the street, stopped to look at us as we got out of the cars. Especially my white hat and double-breasted jacket seemed to take them.

Once I heard something that sounded like the beginning of a cheer, but the voices were so lazy that they couldn't carry it out, so it muttered itself to death, and that was the end of it.

Twenty of the Japanees were with me when I alighted from the car and spread my white parasol, which hovered like a dove over us, for I made it flutter beautifully as we passed along.

The cabinet people followed after, and just as we were forming to go down street, like a military training, my white hat and feather leading them on, a gentleman came up to us and began to shake hands all round. He was a tall, genteel sort of a person, with light hair and a beard soft and silky as corn tassels; but all under his eyes, blue powder marks were scattered, as if he'd spent half his life firing off Fourth of July powder salutes, and had burst up on some of them.

While I was wondering who it could be, Mr. Robeson, who has some dealings with navy yards and shipping, come up to where I stood, and says he:

"Miss Frost, allow me to present Commodore Worden, the gentleman who distinguished himself on the first Monitor."

Sisters, that minute the powder marks on Worden's handsome face were glorified in my eyes. I reached out my hands. I pressed his, my beaming eyes covered him with particular admiration. Feeling as if I were the colonel of that company, I longed to lift my white hat and give him a military salute. What I did say was significant.

"Worden," says I, "when certain events come about—I say nothing, but this hat and jacket are typical of what I mean—when these great and luminous events fill the hemisphere your glorious bravery on that iron flat-boat shall have its full record. I will myself send your picture to the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and if there is a higher notch in the public shipping than you have, I know nothing of the friend whose colors I wear if anybody stands before you. I have seen the picture of your Monitor. To my eye it looks like a flat-iron, with the handle in the water; but it did good work, and so did you. Grant knows it. My own immortal statesman will appreciate it."

Commodore Worden bowed, and smiled, and squoze my hand so long that I began to feel anxious about my white gloves. But he dropped it at last, and we all moved on, my white feather waving in front, just like that which King Henry of Navarre wore in battles. Only mine was a peaceful emblem, dyed in the milk of human kindness, and curled up in the sunshine of prosperity.

We marched through dull streets and round deserted corners, cutting in and out every which way till we came to a large gate, which shut the Navy Yard out from the rest of mankind.

Then we filed through into a beautiful meadow, with the grass cut short, sprinkled over with trees, and cut into footpaths. Part of it was bounded by water, the rest by rows of handsome houses and great buildings that looked like factories shut up for want of work.

The minute I and Mr. Iwakura walked through the gate, bang! went a cannon; bang, bang, bang! seventeen times.

"What on earth is that?" says I, turning to Dempster, who was just behind me.

"It is a salute for us," says he.

"Us!" says I, with accents of disdain that put him in his place at once.

"For you, then," says he, smiling in a way I didn't like, for, having no envy in my own disposition, I cannot endure it in others.

Mr. Iwakura and I walked on slowly. He looked at me and smiled as the guns kept going off, till I counted seventeen; then they stopped and I was glad of it, for I remembered that our meeting-house bell tolls once for every year, when a person dies, and I felt a little anxious about the number of guns they might pile on to live folks. But they stopped short at seventeen, which is an age no girl need be ashamed to own, and which showed how young some persons can look in spite of hard literary toil.

Well, first we went into Commodore Worden's house, where Mr. Iwakura and I were introduced to Mrs. Worden and some other ladies. Then the rest came in for a little notice, and we filed off into the grounds again, where there was a general training of boys in blue jackets, with buttons and things, all armed with guns, which they handled like old militia men. Sometimes, when they poked their guns right at us, I kind of got behind Mr. Iwakura, who, being small, wasn't much of a shelter, but better than nothing. In fact, I was rather glad when this part of the fun died out.

After this, we went into one of the big houses where the blue boys live, and a whole lot of little, make-believe ships were shown to us, and two Japanee boys told Mr. I. how they were worked—which would have been interesting, only we didn't know a word of that language, nor much about the baby-house of ships, and didn't listen to what was said in English.

Then the boys in blue and buttons went into the meadow again, and got out a lot of small cannon, and banged, and ran in lines and squads down to the river, as if they were awful mad with the water and meant to dam it—dam it up, I wish you to understand, for even indirect profanity isn't in my nature.

After this, we all went down to a great, lumbering old ship, which is all the home these blue boys have the first year they come to the Annapolis school, which, being a sailor institution, gives them a taste for creeping into holes and sleeping on a yard or two of rope swung to the ship's beams—which may be pleasant fun, but doesn't look like it.

Sisters, it was getting along in the day, and, though in a certain sense spiritualized by genius, I was hungry. Mr. Iwakura, too, had a pitiful look in his black eyes; but a storm of music called us from hankering thoughts, and we all streamed, at a faster double-quick than the boys could show, into the great dining-room of one of the big houses. A splendid table was set out there, which we gathered round like a half-starved regiment on training-day. Then began such a practice in cider bottles, flying corks, and cider foaming and fizzing into glasses, as beat all the cannon and howitzer blazings of the day—for that ended in something, and the rest didn't.

It is astonishing what effect eating and drinking has on the feet; I could hardly keep from dancing all the way from that dining-hall to the other building, which is kept especially for dancing. Well, we did dance, for the music just took one right into the midst of it, want to or not. Besides, we hadn't been to a tomb, and nobody had been killed, so we just went in for it. My alpaca dress isn't over long, and I wasn't afraid of showing my feet when there was no train to tangle them up. We danced with our bonnets and hats on—we ladies, I mean—and the way my white feather rose and fell and fluttered over the rest was enough to wake up the American heart in every bosom present.



LXIV.

AMERICAN AUTHORS.

Dear sisters:—You have heard of Mr. Shakespeare, a writer of old England, who died, years and years ago, in a little country place in England. He was celebrated for several things besides writing. Going to sleep under trees is one of them; shooting deer that belonged to somebody else—who took him up and made an awful time about it before a justice of the peace, who fined him, or something—is another. Then, again, he married an elderly girl, and forgot to live with her ever so long. While she stayed at home, he went up to London, and wrote plays and played them before her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who ought to have reminded him of his married elderly girl, being her own royal self of that class, only not married. There is no reason to think she did have much influence in that direction though, for that particular queen was more celebrated for keeping husbands away from their wives than bringing them cosily together.

The truth is, from the very first—when she got up a series of romping platonics with Lord Seymour, her step-mother's husband, to her last, gray-headed old flirtation with the young Essex—her taste ran against the practical idea of husbands living with their own wives. That non-matrimonial creature may have tried her power on Shakespeare—who knows?

Sisters, there is one part of this man's life and character that may shock your religious feelings. He wrote plays; he acted plays too; and that female queen encouraged him in it. Now, ever since I went to see the "Black Crook," I scorn myself for ever having one mite of charity for such things, and I haven't the conscience to say one word in their favor to you, as a Society. Still, this Mr. Shakespeare did write some things that might have sounded tolerably well in a lecture or a sermon that wasn't too strictly doctrinal.

Last night I was talking with a lawyer from away "Out West," who spoke real kindly about Mr. Shakespeare's writings, and seemed to think if he had put off being born until now, and settled "Out West," where he could have given him a hint now and then, he might have made a first-rate literary man. "Even as it is," says he, "I do my best to make him popular, for he wrote some very readable things—very readable, indeed. For instance, not long since, in an exciting slander case, I quoted these lines, with a burning eloquence that lifted the judge right off from his bench:

"'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff; 'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine, 'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands; But he that hooketh from me my good name, Grabs that which don't do him no good, But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"

"Is that the genuine old English that Mr. Shakespeare wrote in?" says I.

"Oh, that is the beauty of it," says he. "Shakspeare was no doubt a very respectable writer, but perfection is the watch-word of modern progress. Of course one doesn't introduce a quotation of his without all the modern improvements. Shakespeare—"

"Mr. Shakspeare," says I, determined to keep up the dignity of authorship with my last breath.

"Well, Mr. Shakspeare would have made a very superior writer if he had lived in this country and been fostered by an American Congress."

"An American Congress," says I. "What on earth did that ever do for writers?"

"Why, don't it publish books for the members to give away. Isn't that encouraging literature?"

I said nothing, never having read one of the books in my life, and never having seen any one that had.

"Then," says he, "hasn't every man that can write the life of a President of these United States before his election, been made an ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason that he had written a paltry life of himself?"

"Mr. Hawthorne," says I, with expressive emphasis.

"And didn't General Grant send Colonel Badeau to London, after his life was taken by that young man?"

"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man; and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London, because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were alive."

"That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park to-morrow."

"To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in America may get a chance."

"But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was sitting near me.

"All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman was born, and has lived and written, is the place where he should be first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women, have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the power God has given them—worked it out, too, with not half the recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea."

"Why, Phoemie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you know that you are talking like a book?"

"It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it," says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and we mean to keep so."

"Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors who have been living over his plays years and years—Booth, Wallack, Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.

"What Shakespeare did for theatres, theatre people know how to acknowledge. They have some spirit; but what author ever comes forward and asks a place for his fellow-author? How can they expect the country to be generous to them when they do nothing for each other?"

It kind of took me down when Cousin Dempster said this, and not having anything to observe, I said nothing, but got right up, and says I:

"If we mean to start for New York, it's time to be getting ready."



LXV.

THE STATUE OF SHAKESPEARE.

Well, sisters, we got to New York in time, and went right up to Central Park, which was just one garden of flowers, all in full bloom. The trees, too, were of a bright, lovely green, and the little lakes blue as a baby's eye, sparkled and rippled wherever the sun shone and the wind swept over them. A wide green circle, with lots of trees shading it, and great heaps of bushes heavy with pink and white flowers everywhere around it, was just alive with men and women. They were all in their Sunday go-to-meeting best, some on the grass, some in carriages, and all chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves mightily, but crowding toward one spot.

Under these trees, where the grass was greenest, and the flowers brightest, there was a sort of pyramid, covered over with star-spangled banners of bright silk. Sweeping round that, like a ring cut in two, were platforms with rows on rows of seats, built against flag-poles, from which ever so many flags were a-streaming out on the wind. These seats were crammed and crowded full of people. The centre platform was roofed in, and just running over with men holding fiddles, drums, twisted horns, trumpets, great puffy bass viols, and everything else that could turn music into thunder, and thunder back into music.

There was an inside circle nearer to the pyramid, and our tickets took us there, among the greatest people of the country, which was an honor I felt in behalf of the society. This was the penetralia, which, I suppose, from the first syllable, was got up especially for authors. I took my seat in that honored place, and, spreading my white parasol, looked about me, feeling the exaltation of my position in a modest way, but willing that others should make their little mark even if I was there.

Well, the first thing that came was a crash that made me hop right up, and near about break my parasol. No wonder; for more than a hundred men were just flooding the air with music, that rose and fell and fluttered till the trees and bushes shook under it. I do believe the sweetness and the thundering outbursts would have inspired me to break into some good old tune myself, if there hadn't been so much rustling and talking and flirting all around me. As it was, there arose a clatter of confusing sounds that gave one's nerves a jerky feeling that I for one haven't got over yet. I do wonder why city people have no better manners. I should just as soon think of speaking out in meeting, as of chattering when others wanted to listen to music.

Well, after a hard tussle between the people and the music, the people came out first-best—more shame to 'em. Then a gentleman they call Judge Daly—a real nice-looking person—got out and reached out his arms toward the pyramid, wrapped up in flags.

The minute he did this all the people began to stamp and clap their hands, and fling out their handkerchiefs as if they had gone crazy. The more he tried to speak, the more they stamped and clapped and shouted; and he kept a-bowing real graceful, till by and by they stopped and let him speak.

Then he went right on and told them all about the statue, which ought to have been done and put up on the day that Mr. Shakespeare was three hundred years old, only the statue wasn't ready then, but that was of no account, when we considered how beautiful the whole thing was, and what an honor it would be to American art. Judge Daly was all alive with this idea, and spoke splendidly. When he had done, I just laid down my parasol, and clapped my hands till a pair of three-button gloves gave out. Sisters, that one clap cost me just three dollars and fifty cents.

When Judge Daly sat down, a gentleman walked up to the pyramid, and stood by it looking awful pale and anxious, as if the thousands and thousands of eyes bent on him had drawn all the blood from his body. He was a fine, handsome-looking man, and somehow I took a shine to him at first sight.

All at once his face flushed up, and I saw that he held the end of a rope in his hand. While I was a-looking and wondering, he gave the rope a jerk, and down come those silk flags, all in a wild flutter, and there stood Mr. Shakespeare as if he'd just stopped to rest a minute after walking, and had been struck with an idea which he was thinking over. His head was just a little bent, and he held a book up against his bosom, with his finger between the leaves.

Mr. Shakespeare must have been a proper handsome man about two hundred and seventy-five years ago. No wonder that elderly young lady fell in love with him. I could have done it myself, not because I am elderly, far from it, but because he was—well, I suppose because he was Shakespeare, and awful handsome at that.

Queen Elizabeth must have given him the suit of clothes he wears; for when I said his trousers were too puffy and short for my liking, and his cloak nothing to speak of in the way of a covering, a gentleman near me said the dress was Elizabethan.

This rather set me against the memory of Mr. S. He ought to have died rather than take anything from that cruel, hard-hearted old—I was going to say old maid, but refrain, not wishing to be hard on her, cruel as she was.

Oh, mercy, what a shout that was. It seemed as if every heart in that great crowd had burst out in a glow of admiration. Mine just fluttered like a night hawk. I stood up and whirled the white parasol over my head; more than that, I split the other glove, and was glad of it.

That Mr. Ward had been working eight years on the statue he had just uncovered, and our enthusiasm was his best reward. There he stood face to face with the people, who were to give him pain or cruel disappointment. I felt for him. No wonder his face turned white and then red as fire. Years of labor for one hour of triumph. He deserved all the praise he got, and that was stupendous.

The statue was now all uncovered, and the sunshine lay upon it. Sisters, it is beautiful; but one thing troubles me—the color. Was Mr. Shakespeare of that complexion, or has the great man been darkened out of regard to the Fifteenth Amendment and Mr. Sumner? When a man is statued in bronze, does he always turn out a mulatto? I don't like the idea—it's carrying the Civil Rights Bill too far.

Judge Daly had made a present of this statue to the park, in his speech. Now Mr. Stebbins, the President of the Park Commissioners, came forward and thanked him for it in the nicest way. He was just the man to do it, though he is a broker and banker; for he cares quite as much for art as he does for gold. Wherever he finds genius, this man spends his money like dew upon it. It was he that gave Miss Kellogg her first start in music, and a good many other stragglers have secretly been helped by him when they felt almost like giving up. For my part, I honor and glorify such men.

The next thing I saw was a grand-looking old man, with a long, white beard falling over his bosom, and soft, white hair floating about his head. I held my breath when this man arose, and while the crowd yelled and shouted and made the ground tremble under me, I looked at him with my heart in my eyes. What Shakespeare was to England, this old man is to America—the best part of the land that gave him birth. He made a long speech, a beautiful speech. I have read his poems, so have you; but the poetry of his spoken words, of his voice and looks, is grander than written language, and nothing that I can write will give you the least idea of it.

For my part, I hope that the next statue set up in the park will be that of William Cullen Bryant. What is the reason that we should wait till a man is dead before we give back something for the genius with which he has honored his country? The readers that may come up three hundred years from now owe him no more than we do. What are we waiting for, then? When Mr. Bryant sat down, there was another earthquake of applause, which had but just time to stop, when it burst out again for Edwin Booth. The best actor, and one of the handsomest men you ever saw, came forward and read a long piece of poetry, which just made the blood stir like wine in your veins. There was a double gust of genius in this poem; because the poet Stoddard wrote it, and then Booth gave it the fire of his soul and the music of his voice, which seemed to float and whisper around the statue long after the crowd had scattered itself over the park.



LXVI.

RACING DRESSES.

Dear sisters:—Don't be startled; don't hold up your hands in holy astonishment when I tell you that I—Phoemie Frost—your moral and—I say it meekly—religious missionary, have been to a horse-race. I am shocked myself now, in the cool of the morning, not exactly because I went, but from what happened after I got there.

Have I done wrong? Can a missionary, without knowledge, do her duty? If she knows nothing of sin, how can she warn against sin?

Then, again, is the running of swift horses sinful?

Sisters, I am troubled. The more one knows, the more one is perplexed and put about. It is so easy to condemn things by the wholesale that you know nothing about. One can speak so positive about them, for total ignorance admits of no argument, and is entirely above all evidence. That is why ignorant stubbornness is so self-satisfied and comfortable.

After all, I begin to think that "ignorance is bliss." Is there anything on this earth more snoozily comfortable than a litter of white pigs revelling with their mother in a mud-puddle—say in August? What do these contented animals care for the mud that soils their whiteness, with the pink skin shining through—rosy pigs, as one may call the kind I am speaking of. Think of them muzzling about in the rily water, free as air; then turn to your learned pig, chained to a master by the forced action of its own intellect—poor thing! obliged to play cards with its fore-foot, teach geography, and cipher out numbers like a schoolmaster—and then say if ignorance isn't bliss! Look in the little black eyes of the animal, and see the sad and hungry look that knowledge has brought to him!

To know is to want—to want is to suffer.

Where was I? Speaking about horses, naturally I wandered off down to other grades of animals—the laziest, largest, best-natured creatures of all—but, as you may observe with propriety, not suggestive of horse-races, which I admit and apologize for.

Well, right or wrong, I have been to the races at Jerome Park, which is a hollow among the hills, clear out of New York, and the other side of Harlem River. There, every spring and fall, the best horses owned about here are set a-going like wildfire, and the one that beats is thought the world of.

The park isn't much of a piece of woods, after all; a good-sized maple camp in Vermont has got twice as many trees, but then a good deal of it is turned out to grass. Then, again, a level turnpike curls in a ring all round one of the hills, and on the top of that is a kind of hotel, or long tavern, with a tremendous stoop stretched around it, where the upper-crust of fast horsedom crowd in to see the creatures run.

On the other hillside, right against the tavern, is a great long, open shed, with seats after seats sloping down from the inside, where the lower-crust of fast horsedom crowd in from the railroads, and so on. They have to pay for going in, but, for all that, haven't a right to go across to the upper side, which must be aggravating.

All the men that go to the upper-crust tavern wear a huge round thing with a ribbon fastened to their coats, and strut awfully under them, as if they were the crowning glory of all creation. Maybe they are; I don't know, not being highly educated in horsiness.

Well, Cousin Dempster has one of these medals, which he hitched to the lappel of his coat that morning. Cousin E. E. had been fidgeting awfully all the week about a dress she was bent on wearing, and when it didn't come home from the dress-maker's till late the night before, I really thought she would take a fit right before us all. But the dress came at last, and then she wheeled right round the other way with joy.

"Such a dress!" says she. "There won't be anything to match it. All my own idea, too"

Here she tumbled a cataract of silk from a great paper box, and shook it out till it fluttered like the leaves on a young maple-tree.

"Isn't it superb?" says she; "peacock green and peacock blue intermingled like a poem, sloping folds up the front breadth two and two, bunching splendidly behind, frilled, flounced, corded, folded, trailing, and yet demi to a large extent. Cousin Frost, Cousin Frost! did you ever see anything so original, so—so—"

"Scrumptious," says I, a-helping her out, "peacock green and peacock blue; if we only had the half-moons on the train now."

She looked at me earnestly; her soul had taken in the thought, and it burned in her eyes.

"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" says she.

I smiled. It takes genius to understand the fine irony of genius. Cousin E. E. is bright, but the subtle originality of a new thought isn't in her. That usually does in a family what this Government is trying so hard for—centralizes itself in one person.

It is not difficult to say where this supreme essence condenses itself in our family. Still, I do not object to other members making their little mark, and if E. E. can make hers in the peacock line, why not?

To my fancy, that dress was a nation sight too much. It was all in a flutter, silk heaped on silk. E. E. tried it on, and fairly waded in silk when she walked. There was neither elegance nor simplicity in it, nothing but a sickening idea of extravagance and money.

E. E. looked like a peacock, walked like a peacock, and seemed to feel like one. She took a little mite of a bonnet from a box that came just after the dress, and put it on. It was shaped like the small end of a loaf of sugar, with a pink rose and a bunch of green and blue feathers on the top, bee-hivy in height, but brigandish in shape, slightly pastoral, and a little military.

"Isn't it stylish?" says she, setting it on the top of her curls and puffs, with such an air.

"Original," says I, "but you know which is my color."

E. E. laughed till the feathers shook on her head.

"Oh!" says she, "Dempster and I are prudent. After the middle of July perhaps we may—"

"Till then," says I, "you'll sit on the fence peacock fashion."

We had more words, for E. E. is nobody's fool; but just then Cecilia came in, and I made myself scarce.



XLVII.

THE FIRST HORSE-RACE.

Well, we started for the races in high feather. Cousin D. had just got his open carriage cushioned off beautifully. His horses had rosettes on their heads, and little looking-glasses about as big as a dollar flashing between their ears.

Cousin E. E. wore the peacock dress and the brigandish hat. The parasol had a red coral handle, and, to own the truth, no horse on the race-ground looked faster than she did.

I followed her modestly. My pink silk seemed to grow brighter when it settled down against her green and blue; my white hat was looped up on one side with a white cockade, and the white feather streamed out banner fashion. With me all was simplicity, patriotism, and whiteness—pure as the distinguished individual of whom they were a delicate typification.

The drive up to that race-ground was just too lovely for anything. The horses fairly flew. The wind just shook the white fringe on my parasol, and kept my emblematical feather dancing after my hat. Cousin Dempster drove, and that girl Cecilia sat high up on the front seat by him, with her short dress ruffled and pinked about the bottom like a full-blown poppy; her—well, ankles visible to the knees, and all her hair floating out loose and crinkly. I say nothing, but ask you, as females of experience, what kind of a woman will that stuck-up child make, in the long run?

The race ground was gay as a general training when we got there. It had rained lately; the trees and grass were green as green could be, and thousands of red-birds, yellow-hammers, blue-jays, and golden-robins, seemed to have settled down around the long tavern, the hill-side, and under the old trees. I declare, the sight was beautiful.

Cousin D. had to show his badge and thing at the gate; then we drove up to the long tavern with a dash, hopped gracefully out of the carriage, and walked right in among the great crowd of gentlemen and ladies chatting, laughing, and moving about the long stoop.

Sisters, I do try to be humble, but it is awful hard work. When I went into that crowd, with my pink silk trailing and that white feather all afloat, the whole congregation seemed to break into groups and hush up, just to look at me. I didn't pretend to notice this delicate ovation, but walked slowly forward, and with a becoming blush on my cheek, while E. E. and that child kept bowing and shaking hands with everybody they met.

After I had seated myself in one of the great splint-bottomed chairs that stood in dozens on the stoop, the crowd felt at liberty to go on again—and it did. A flock of birds couldn't have twittered and tittered and flitted more joyaceously than the females crowded together on that stoop.

But I soon had something else to look at. Down in front of the hotel a lot of horses were prancing to and fro, up and down, breaking into a run here, wheeling round, going back, standing still, and generally cutting about in a promiscuous manner, as if they were dying to have a dance in the street.

Sisters, in all your born days, you never saw anything like those horses! Slender, smooth as glass, with eyes like balls of fire, they just took the shine off from everything in the horse line that I ever set eyes on. But the animals were nothing compared to the funny-looking creatures that rode them. A circus was nothing to them—neither is a theatre. Some of them were dressed in red, some in yellow, some in blue; one had on purple—all fitting just as tight as the skin to a rabbit's back. Each one had a boy's cap on his head; and, in fact, they all looked like boys out on a spree. There was a place just above the long tavern where most of these fellows always took their horses after a little run and blow—that was a little, cubby house, built up high from the ground, in which some men stood like captains on a steamboat.

By and by there was a stir among the horses and a hustle among the men.

"They're going to start! they're going to start!" says everybody to everybody else. A flag on the little house seemed to break down. Then off the whole lot flew like a flock of wild birds. The flying horses rushed along the road, beating time on the hard ground, and fairly taking the breath from one's lips.

I gave a little scream, and jumped up. The whole crowd rushed forward, and seemed as if it would pour itself over the railing of the long stoop.

"Where have they gone?" says I. "What has become of 'em?"

"Here they come—here they come," shouted the whole crowd, answering me all at once.

And they did come skimming along the road like wildfire—flash—flash—now two horses abreast—now one ahead—now another—then a sudden pull up, and the brown horse had won. Now it seemed to me as if the whole squad came up pretty much at the same time, but the whole crowd fell to clapping hands over the brown horse. I clapped too, and swung out my handkerchief as well as the rest; for when a multitude go into a thing like that it just sets one wild.

Then the flag took another fall, and off went another squad of horses, and around the hill they went out of sight. Then came a stormy sound of hoofs, and another streak of lightning dash in which a chestnut-colored horse showed his head first, and then came another rolling thunder-clap from the crowd, and "Joe Daniels has beat," ran from lip to lip, as if "Joe Daniels" had been up for the Presidential election and got all the votes.

Then the people cooled down, and, after a long wait, there was another rush, as if a whole training band had broke loose. We had hardly time to draw a deep breath, when they all came sweeping round in front of the long tavern, two of 'em just a little ahead, running so even and so fast, that I really believed that both of them beat the other, till the crowd began to clap and shout Alarm, which frightened me, for I thought something dreadful had happened; but Dempster hushed me up, saying it was the name of the horse that had won the race, and he was glad of it, for his friend Travers was one of the warmest-hearted, kindest fellows in the world, and ought to have a horse win every day of his life. This friendly little speech set me clapping my hands, both for the horse Alarm, his orange-colored rider, and the jolly-hearted man who owns him.

There was a great commotion after this. The whole crowd was in a wild whirl of excitement. All the ladies were talking about gloves and pools, and gentleman riders, while the gentlemen talked fast, looked eager, and were restless as caged birds. Something was going to happen now, I was sure of that.

"Do tell me what is the matter," says I to a gentleman that cousin had just introduced to me, "everybody is so excited."

"Yes," says he, "all on the keyvive."

What queer names they do have for horses. Alarm had just come in ahead, and now Keyvive.

"What kind of a horse is the Keyvive?" says I.

He didn't seem to hear me. No wonder, for that very minute five horses, with such nice-looking fellows on their backs, took a start, like a flock of wild deer, and went up the road so swift that before I could see them they were gone.

"It is the hurdle-race," says the same gentleman, "splendid—splendid; what a leap!"

His eyes were bright as stars; they fairly danced in his head.

I sprang up, for a great wind seemed to be rushing around the hill. Then I gave a scream, for some wicked person had built a fence right across the road, and those five horses were galloping like mad right toward it.

"Oh, stop them—stop them—for mercy's sake!" says I, a-clasping my hands, and pleading wildly to every one around. "They'll be killed—they don't see that awful fence."

While I was screaming, the whole five horses came, one after another, sailed right over the fence, dived down like hen-hawks after a chicken, and away toward another fence that choked up the road. Before I could shriek out, and warn them, over they came, like a whirlwind, without touching the fence or seeming to care—over, and away up the road, taking one's breath with them.

"Mercy on me! what a providential escape!" says I to the gentleman; "what wicked wretch could have heaped up things in the road? I do hope they'll be found out and sent to State's prison. Why, it's just as bad as blocking up a train of cars. Such nice-looking riders, too!"

The gentleman looked a trifle puzzled, then he smiled a little funnily, and says he:

"Perhaps you do not understand that this is a 'hurdle-race.'"

"No," says I; "they told me that it would be horse-racing—nothing worse than that."

"Well," says he, "it is nothing worse than that, only a little more dangerous, and to you ladies more interesting, because the riders are all gentlemen."

"What, those men in the caps, gentlemen—not circus-riders, nor nothing?"

He laughed, and says he:

"I dare say no one of them has ever been in a circus since he left off tunics, but they have learned to hunt, and love these hard leaps."

"You don't mean to say that they skiver over such fences on purpose?" says I.

"Indeed they do, and build them higher and broader every year."

"You don't say so," says I, feeling my eyes open wide.

"They love the peril, for that increases the excitement."

"What if some of them were to be flung head over heels?"

"Oh, that has happened."

"Not to-day?"

"Yes, but fortunately the man was not killed."

I felt myself a-growing pale.

"But they don't know of it. Everybody is laughing," says I.

"Yes, it is generally known, but that is a part of the excitement. In a crowd like this, it is difficult to realize trouble or death."

"How strange!" says I, putting the handkerchief that I had torn with hard shaking into my pocket, with a deeply penitent feeling.

"It is strange," says he; "but this is no place for deep feeling, or you would not see so many smiling faces around you, for a gentleman who owns some of the race-horses, and came up only a day or two ago to see them tried, is lying dead in his home now."

My heart sank. I felt tears crowding up to my eyes. Death in one place—all this gorgeous confusion and wild gayety here. A lonely widow, weeping bitter tears; all these gay fluttering young people reckless and happy, in spite of it.

I arose, and looked around me. No one seemed to feel this man's death. Never in my whole life had I been in such a whirlpool of gayety. There was not a sad or thoughtful face in the crowd. Yet many of the persons there had known the man who lay dead in the city. I had never heard of him till then, but no smiles came to my lips after that mournful knowledge reached me. In the midst of all this hilarious gayety I felt the shadow of human suffering creeping over me, and I rode home from the race-park in sad silence.



LXVIII.

OFF AGAIN.

Dear sisters:—New York City is full of epidemical contagions. Horse-racing is one of them. Every spring and fall it rages fearfully, especially among the female women who wait for the races—dress up for the races, and come out with splendiferous spontaneosity, whenever the fast horses are ready to run.

I have been up to see the creatures rush once, and sent you my report, which, owing to verdancy of mind caught from the Green Mountains, was only skim milk to which I now pour in cream with a liberal hand. To own the truth, it takes more than one visit before a regular New England young lady can understand the inns and outs of a horse-race.

Now, I dare say you think it a sort of agricultural fair for animals—for the horsey kind meant to show off their beauty, try their speed, and encourage farmers to go in for improvement.

Exactly, and a good deal more so. Why, sisters, it's gambling—just gambling, open handed and above board, in which the upper-crust female women of New York take a hand with the men, and glory in it. But I mean to tell you all about it in the regular way, and shall do it as I go along.

You never saw such a crowd of carriages, wagons, buggies, and queer horse machines as crowded along the road when we got within three or four miles of the race-course. When we come to the long bridge that runs across the Harlem River, there were two lines of carriages stretching before and behind us, just as far as we could see, horses that tossed their heads and champed their bits, and shone like satin under harnesses mounted with gold and silver, with little looking-glasses flying in and out over their heads, and hoofs that struck the ground like the feet of a Vermont girl when she dances from the heart.

All these carriages were filled as if they were on the way to a high jubilation, choke full of ladies, with parasols hovering over them like wild birds taking wing, and great clouds of silk, lace gauze, and shiny stuff a-billowing over the sides, till you could but just see the silk cushions they leaned against. Then, again, some were crowded over with gentlemen, mostly in white hats—which delighted me—some with cigars in their mouths—some not—but every one of them just boiling over with good-nature and fun.

This was the way we went. Cousin Dempster has made a good deal of money in Washington—contracting, or something—and he got a spick-span new open carriage for this high occasion—a carriage made soft as a bird's nest with brown satin cushions, and that glittered outside like a crow's back whenever the sun struck it.

We had a great big fellow, in new plum-colored clothes on the driver's seat, and another genteel youngster by his side—all plum-color and hat-band, like the coachman. Inside, there was Cousin E. E. with a pea-green dress on, all flounces and fringe, and overskirts piled up so high behind that she couldn't lean back, and your missionary, Miss Phoemie Frost, in her pink silk (turned again), and the white hat with plumes of snow, which bespoke at once her good taste and her most sacred political preferences, which would keep going on both sides all I could do.

There, in the front seat, with his back to the horses and his face to us, sat Dempster, looking out with envy and bitter feelings on the men in buggies, that were laughing like fun, and smoking like New England stone chimneys. At such times I do not think that Dempster appreciates all the sweet benefits of female society.

Last and least, I am sorry to say, was that child, Cecilia, with a pink parasol about as big as a good-sized toadstool, fluttering before her face, and all in a storm of flounces above her knees, with nothing but kid boots and silk stockings below.

I do wonder what possesses Dempster and E. E. to train that child along wherever they go! She is just the aggravation of my life.

Well, with our open carriage yeasting over with green, pink, white, and blue, which Dempster broke up with a lean streak of black, we rolled through the gate of the race-grounds and came up, with a magnificent sweep, to the back door of the club house, when E. E. and I gave a neat little jump, and tipped gracefully around the long stoop, right into the upper crust society of New York.

Sisters, it was like wading right into a flower-bed! Everybody there had on her good clothes—I may say, her bettermost clothes of all. Red, green, purple, blue, white, black—every color or shade of color to be found in the sky, in flowers, in fruit, or in water, rustled against each other. Sisters, it was gorgeous! But one thing struck me as peculiar—most of these female ladies had the loveliest pink color in their cheeks all the time. While my face was turning red and white, as I grew warm or comfortable, theirs kept one steady pink. Ladies with hair as yellow as gold had ink-black eyebrows and lashes—things we never see together in the country. I don't understand it. Well, we had but just got seats on the largest stoop when the people below us let off a squad of horses that seemed to fly; for the mud was soft as mush on the road, and their hoofs made no more noise than as if they had trod on velvet.

Just before these horses made their first dive, Dempster came up to us with a person who carried a white hat in his hand, and held it out as if he wanted something put into it. I thought that somebody had been cheating the poor fellow, for there was nothing but little, crumpled bits of paper in the hat. Of course I did not want to equal these treacherous people in meanness, so I took out my pocket-book and dropped a five-cent piece into the hat, smiling benignly on the good-looking suppliant as I did it. I really was ashamed of Cousin E. E.; for instead of giving the poor fellow a trifle of money, she just nipped up one of the crumpled bits of paper, and, opening it, called out, laughing like a girl:

"I've drawn the favorite! Oh, isn't that splendid!"

I declare I was mortified by such silly nonsense, and wanting to keep up the credit of the family, dropped another five-cent piece in the hat, and nodded toward E. E., as much as to say: "Never mind; I give it for her."

Instead of thanking me, the man stared and turned a trifle red, as if the gratitude that filled his heart were trying to burst through his face. It was a noble feeling, and I appreciated it by another kind nod and smile.

Then he held out the hat to "that child," and she, too, snatched up one of the papers and began to giggle over it. I declare you might have lighted a candle by my face, it burned so.

"Is there no end to such meanness?" thought I, and once more I opened my pocket-book.

"No matter, Phoemie, I'll attend to that," says Cousin Dempster, waving his hand at me.

Out came his pocket-book then, and he took from it a handful of greenback-bills, which he gave to the man, who laughed as if he were half-tickled to death, and well he might be, for Dempster was as extravagant as the female portion of his family had been mean.

"Here is the last number, and our pool is complete," says he, taking a bit of paper from the hat, and dropping it into my lap. "Don't trouble yourself, Phoemie, it's all right."

I did trouble myself, in spite of his smiling face. Charity is one thing, and ostentation is another. After my gift, which I must say was liberal enough, there was no need of such a display as Dempster made. No wonder the man looked pleased as he marched away, with the money in one hand, and that white hat in the other.

When the horses came rushing by again, and made a sharp halt just above the house, the man came up to us choke full of pleasure, and wanted to look at my paper. I thought he was taking liberties, but gave him the mite of paper, and drew back in my seat, in proper fashion.

"Your horse has won," says he; "Mid-day has the race by a length."

With that he laid a roll of bills in my lap, and went away, bowing low, till his white hat almost touched the floor.

"Mercy on me! what does this mean?" says I, a-taking up the money. "Is the man crazy?"

"It means that you have won the pool," said Dempster.

Before I could ask him what on earth he meant, Cousin D. was swept off by a crowd of ladies, and three sandy-haired horses were put upon the run. I could not tell one horse from another, they were so alike; but they all were long and lank, with hind legs that looked as if all their strength lay in that direction to a wonderful extent, and the way they threw them out was surprising.

About this time I saw a great many white hats flying about, and men had pocket-books in their hands, while ladies talked wildly about gloves and neckties, and clapped their hands when the horses rushed by, and the word "pool" was in everybody's mouth—in fact, it was Bedlam let loose.



LXIX.

THE STEEPLE-CHASE.

Sisters:—This horse hurdling is something that just lifts you right off your feet. All that I had seen was nothing to what was to come. All along the winding road, and the lots each side, some men went to building fences, till every few yards were fenced in, and yet seven long-legged, long-bodied, and not over fleshy horses, with riders in white, in blue, in yellow, and striped brown and yellow, were ready for another start, which they made like a thunderburst.

On they came, flying and flashing through the lots, like a flock of birds, right up to the first fence. I sprang up—everybody sprang up, wild and anxious—I expected to see the whole grist of them pitch head-foremost against the rails, when up they all rose, and away they went straight over, and off like a shot to the next and the next, clearing one after another, before you could draw a deep breath. Across lots, down the road, in and out they went, jumping fences, now abreast, now in a swift line, till they came up all at once to a pond of water.

I screamed right out, and felt myself growing cold, for they were rushing toward it full split, and it was wider across than the mill-stream back of our school-house.

"Stop 'em, stop 'em! They'll be drowned, they'll be killed!" I screamed out, just crazy with fear.

No one minded me; the whole crowd was too busy watching those wild riders to mind me if I had yelled like an engine whistle. They came rushing up nearer—nearer, almost in a line, as if some enemy were ahead, and the whole squad meant to ride right through and trample everything down. They were close by the water now, with a low fence that side. On they rushed—a whole cloud of hoofs ploughed up through the air, and those seven horses went shooting like sparrows over the fence and across the water. Their hoofs struck fire from the stone wall on the other side, and away they went, pell-mell, their riders shooting out colors like a broken rainbow, and the crowd cheering them on as if it had been a sham fight on training-day.

On they flew like a young whirlwind, though one bay horse they called "Blind Tom" fell short. The rider, trying to bring him up, was pitched over his head, at which the crowd was hushed, but burst out again when Blind Tom left the poor fellow behind, and dashed on with the other horses neck and neck round the fields, leaping a fence or two, before the poor stunned rider could roll over and pick himself up.

Oh, it was too droll—that plucky horse, dashing along with the rest, shooting over the fences, up to time, and acting like a soldier charging under command. I could just have gone down and kissed the splendid creature, and the whole crowd—thousands and thousands—set up shout after shout that you could have heard almost on the Green Mountains.

Another horse came out first best on the second round, but a couple of men, right behind me, insisted that Blind Tom ought to have the money—what money I didn't understand—but I agreed with the men, if there was anything that a horse could accept, Blind Tom was the animal for the money.

Sisters, there don't seem much that is wrong about this. You can't see any amount of deep iniquity in it, can you now? I didn't discover anything poisonous to the moral character; but then we female women don't always see deep enough into great social and religious questions, and horse-racing is one.

What do you think the gloves and neckties meant? What hidden sin lay buried under the pools? What, after all, took that great multitude up to that beautiful hollow among the hills? Gambling, my dear; male and female gambling, nothing more, nothing less. The horses run for money. The jockeys ride for money. The men bet money, hats, gloves, hundreds, thousands, on this horse and that. Everybody gambles, and everybody likes it.

Sisters, that poor man's hat was a pool; there wasn't a drop of water in it; still it was a pool. The two five-cent pieces I threw into it were a dead loss to charity. The scraps of crumpled paper meant dollars. The heap of bills that I tucked away in my pocket-book, innocent as twenty lambs, was money that I had won gambling, ignorantly, innocently.

With Christianity at my heart, and gambling money in my pocket, I feel demoralized as a church member; yet I must confess it exhilated me as if I had been on the top of a high mountain, and was looking down with delicious dizziness. I a gambler, I a diver into pools no larger than a man's hat, but dangerous as the bottomless pit! I cannot realize it; and when realized, it seems to me as if I couldn't be properly penitent. That sort of thing doesn't seem so awful to me as it did before I got into it, in this pleasant, innocent, and sweetly promiscuous manner.

Is this "rolling sin like a sweet morsel under the tongue"? Am I getting faithless to the trust with which I set forth on this city mission?

This much I will say in my own behalf: horse-racing, if pernicious, is awfully pleasant, and horse-betting (gloves and neckties I mean) is—well—ditto.

Such a ride home as we had! Trees and grass, cool and green—no dust. The sun going down, and throwing red shadows across the fields. Carriages crowded full of smiling people, horses wild to pass each other and get home; yourself deliciously tired, with half a dozen swift horses chasing each other through your brain, and trampling down your conscience.

Well, sisters, I may have been wrong, but frankness is my peculiarity, and I should like to try it all over again, just once. Don't think hard of it, but I should.



LXX.

PREPARING FOR SEA.

Dear Sisters:—With an aching head and bitter taste in my mouth, I take up my pen to write. Myself, and not myself, I sit here as if I had just come out of the upheaving of an earthquake. If I write anything of what happened yesterday, it must be sensational; for, of all sensations that ever riled up a human constitution, that I felt while out to sea beat all that I ever knew or heard of.

I have been out to a yacht race.

Horse-racing is a science not unknown, in its rudiments, to our rural population. You can remember when we took our first lessons, bareback, with a rope-halter looped around the horse's nose for a bridle. No—that was our second lesson; the first was on father's old grey horse, which was blind of one eye, and had a natural saddle curved into his back. Being a mite of a child, I sat in that hollow like a bird in its nest, hung on to the mane with one hand, and held a crooked stick before the eye that could see when I wanted the creature to turn. In this way I began my horse-alphabet. First, we waded through the plantains and burdocks, at a slow walk, with a stumble now and then, which set my little heart to quaking like a swampy bog trod upon. Then I grew venturesome, and the old grey warmed into a soft trot, which shook me up like anything, but was more exhilarating than the walk. With my bare feet pressed close to the animal's side and my fingers gripped into his mane, I began to rattle my stick timidly against his shoulder; at which he broke trot and racked himself off into a canter, which made my heart leap with every fall of his hoofs, and filled it with the courage of a trooper.

Didn't we wade through the burdocks and sweet ferns then! Didn't we ride round and round that pasture lot, without giving the dear old beast time for a bite of grass or a fair nip at the sweet ferns! Didn't my crooked stick rattle and my hair fly out in the wind! Didn't my mother scream after me, and my father rush out like a crazy man, with both arms spread out, and try to head Old Grey off! Of course he did. But the dear old horse didn't want to give up, and I didn't mean that he should; so he shied, and, of course, having nothing to hold him in by but the tuft of hair and the stick, he left father behind, and, I do believe, kicked up a trifle, just to show his independence.

That was my first lesson on horseback. On the second, my father insisted on haltering the creature, which gave me a pull at his head, and mane, too, which rather interfered with the use of my crooked stick, and bunched me up, till father called out to me to sit up straight—which I did, at last, going it with both hands on the halter, and the hair blowing about my face like a veil. That morning Old Grey and I jumped a brook a full yard wide, and cleared both banks beautifully.

After that I did a great deal of bareback riding, along the road and in the pasture lots, and could sit and ride like a trooper before I ever got into a side-saddle or knew what a curb-bit was.

Sisters, that is the way to learn things—begin at the beginning, and get a firm, steady seat before you attempt to cut a dash. The lady that can't sit her horse handsomely without regard to bit or stirrup, needn't set herself up as much of a rider—at any rate, in our part of the country.

So much for one kind of racing. Now for the water-course.

We used to send little boats, dug out with a jack-knife, under paper sails, down that brook by the school-house, and see them swamped among the cowslips or capsized in the eddies, when we were in the A B C class. Some of us went far enough to sail down the mill stream in a canoe dug out of the trunk of some big tree. In fact, I have a remembrance of crossing a large river in a scow pushed forward with awful long poles. But beyond these rudimental experiences, ship-rowing is not indigenous to the Green Mountains, as a general thing, and I do not see how it can ever become a Vermont institution, yet awhile. Therefore I say, horse-racing you can understand, but ship-racing is really a novelty in the Mountains.

Now, a yacht, sisters, is nothing more or less than a baby schooner, which has two masts, or a sloop, that has one, built up slender and graceful, with a cock-pit, which is in the stern, and a cooking-room, which is in the bow, and all the other fixings which make it as much like a ship as a first-rate baby-house is like an old homestead.

Dempster has been to Washington, and got some contracts or something, and what does he do but come home one hot day when we were all just sweltering in white loose gowns, and says he:

"Girls, what do you say to going down to the Regatta?"

"The Regatta," says I, "what is that—anything cool?"

"Why, it is a race given by the Yacht Club," says he, "and of course it will be cool if we go out to sea."

"Well, I don't object to seeing, if that will make things cool," says I; "but how a club can race, except when it is in a policeman's hand, I can't begin to make out."

Cousin D. gave one of his long, hearty laughs, and says he:

"Now, really, Phoemie, don't you understand what a club is?"

I felt the blood rise up into my face.

"Don't I know what a club is?" says I. "Well, I should rather think so. There are hickory clubs, oak clubs, yellow pine knots, that answer pretty well, and locust clubs, but how a little ship can be turned into a club beats me!"

"Oh, it isn't one ship that makes the club, but a good many," says he, "crack ships, too."

I just dropped the two hands I had been holding up, quite out of breath.

"So a good many ships make one club, do they?" says I.

"Just so," says he. "When a lot of men join together for any particular thing, it is called a 'club.' There is the Jockey Club, the Union Club, the Rural Club, the Union League Club, the Yacht Club."

"Oh, for mercy's sake, do stop before you club me to death," says I, clapping both hands to my ears. "We have got timber enough in Vermont, but clubs of any kind are not in our line. Just tell me what you want of us, and we'll say Yes or No."

"Well, I want you to get into my new yacht, and go a little way out to sea," says he.

"To see what?" says I.

"The Regatta."

"Can't you for once speak honest English?" says I.

"Well, a Yacht Race," says he.

"That is, little ships running races," says I; "but where?"

"On the Atlantic Ocean," says he.

My spirit rose. I have seen the East River and the upper bay, and more than once have caught a view of the Long Island Sound from the car-windows, but a live ocean—a great, broad, heaving ocean, with waves roaring up thirty feet high, is an object we do not often get a chance to contemplate on the slopes of the Green Mountains. Would I go and see that? Wouldn't I?"

"Then you will go?" says Cousin Dempster.

"Go!" says I, "yes, if I have to walk afoot with snow-shoes on."

"Well, then, get your yachting clothes ready," says he.

"Pink silk?" I suggested.

"Oh, no; something that can stand the water," says he.

"Say black alpaca, with a white hat and plumes—principle and patriotism before anything else," says I.

"That will be lovely on the blue waves," says Cousin E. E. "I will wear a blue feather, and Cecilia shall turn up her Leghorn flat with an anchor."

"That's just the thing," says Cousin D., with maritime enthusiasm. "I have had the yacht painted white, and on her long white pennant you will find a name all Vermonters love particularly, and the world generally."

"What is her name?" we all said right out at once.

"The Vermonter," says he, straightening himself up proudly.

We all sprang to out feet, and clapped our hands with the wildest enthusiasm.

"I'm not afraid to dare the wildest storms on the ocean with that craft," says I.

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

Sisters, it was a spontaneous outburst of pure state patriotism—even that child Cecilia seemed to feel it—for ten minutes after she was busy as a bee, sewing a silver anchor on her Leghorn flat, and that day, for the first time, I kissed the child with spontaneosity.



LXXI.

YACHT-RACING.

Sisters:—When you go to a yacht-race, the first step is peculiar. You get into a carriage or a car, and ride down to the docks. Then you steam off in a ferry-boat to Staten Island, get into a thing they call a yawl, which floats like a cockle-shell, and carries two or three people, and row off to one of the cunningest, prettiest, slenderest, most scrumptious little ships you ever set eyes on, sitting on the water like a white duck with its wings spread.

Some black-walnut steps fell down the side, over which I climbed, with my heart in my mouth, and jumped into a little pew, with a sofa running round it, and some light cross-legged chairs ready for visitors.

The sun was hot overhead and up from the water, so I just went down into the prettiest little cabin you ever saw, all finished off with shiny wood, like a lady's bedroom, and carpeted with sky-blue, with a pale touch of gray in it. Right by this were two lovely little bedrooms, all blue and cloud color, with snow-white beds and cloudy curtains. There were four beds in the cabin, too, built into the wall, and lots of silver things were shining on brackets and silver hooks.

A sofa, all cushioned with blue, ran down each side of the cabin, and on one of these I took my place while the rest came in.

Cousin D. had invited a dozen people to try his new yacht, and when they all came swarming in, it was cheerful as a beehive.

Some cramped themselves in the cockpit, some flung themselves on the long sofas of the cabin, some got under the sails, cosey as birds in a tree, two and two; but I always remarked that two men and two women somehow never got together; they were sure to split up one of each sort, just as they are apt to do on land.

Well, the yacht spread her sails, made a graceful dive and off she went, her canvas snapping and her colors flying. A whole squad of other vessels set sail too, and off we went like a flock of birds.

The water of the bay was blazing like quicksilver. Some white clouds cooled the sky a little, but everything around was sweltering with hotness. On we went, fleet and cheerful, sending up the water in sparkles, and flying toward the ocean, with green banks on each side of us, and that gloriously hot sun heating up the air like a furnace.

By and by we passed a couple of great stone forts, and came out into the ocean. Oh, what a broad blaze of sky and water—blue and silver everywhere, blue and silver!

On these waters, far out, lay a crimson ship, settled down like a mammoth red bird, and around that a crowd of little vessels, with their sails spread ready for flight. Ever so many steamboats, crowded with people, waited a little way off for the race to begin.

One of these steamboats had the President of these United States on board, and hung out its flag that all the world might know where to find him. We didn't try, but kept modestly down among the small craft.

By and by there was a fluttering among the yachts around the red ship; then a gun banged off, then another, and away the whole flock went, flying across the water in a white cloud.

After it went the steamboats, ploughing and snorting through the water, and after them a whole storm of sailing craft, all on the wing, each dashing up foam like fury.

Now the wind rose higher, and seemed to cool the air, while it spread out all the sails as they flew before it. This seemed to bring in a whole army of little waves from the great ocean, and, as true as you live, every wave had a white hat on.

I jumped up and fairly clapped my hands when I saw these waves trooping in, battalion after battalion, all tossing up their white hats and dancing forward, as if the winds were singing Yankee Doodle behind them.

Then the party in our yacht gave a shout.

"They are rounding the spit," says Cousin D. "Do look, Phoemie."

I did look, but saw nothing particular—who could? What would one spit be in a whole ocean of water.

Then came another shout.

"They have marked the boy."

"Goodness, gracious," says I, "is there a boy overboard? Do fling out a boat-hook or something!"

"Do not disturb yourself, Phoemie," said Cousin D.; "that particular boy has been swimming in one spot these ten years."

"And alive yet?" says I, feeling my eyes widen like saucers.

"Just as live as he ever was," says he.

"You don't say so," says I. "Can we see him from here?"

"Yes; yonder!"

Cousin D. pointed toward something in the water, black, with a red cap on. There did not seem to be much danger of his sinking, for he kept his head high, and a good many boats were near enough to keep him up. I lost sight of him, and watched the vessels flying off again. But somehow, when they came in sight once more, my enthusiasm was all gone, and I began to feel limp and dreadfully discouraged. I haven't had such an uproar about my—well—heart, since the Grand Duke sailed, and that was very different, a sort of affectionate flutter, while this is beyond ex-pres-sion.

Sisters, at the end of the last sentence, my head fell into one of those blue cushions, and I have a dreamy feeling that waves with white hats on were bowing to me right and left.

I have lifted my head again. The yachts are coming in full split. As each comes up, the steamboats and vessels give a yell that makes the sea tremble, and scares all the birds in the neighborhood. One time they shriek—that is for the Gracie. Then there was a deep, long howl—that was for the Jantha. Then there was a yell, a shriek, and a howl, all together, which was for the Vixen.

What yacht beat, I don't pretend to know, but it comes to me as if in a hideous dream that it was the Vixen.

The next thing I have on my mind was, a table set out in the cabin, and the popping of corks from long bottles, with a sound that made me quiver all over. Then I recollect that some one was persecuting me with offers of something nice to eat, for which I shall loath them as long as I live.

Sisters, I did not see a single ocean wave thirty feet high—far from it—but those I did see were quite high enough. If you don't believe me, go to a yacht race, that's all.



LXXII.

MUSIC THAT IS MUSIC.

Dear sisters:—I love music. My soul was brought up on Old Hundred, and refreshed from time to time with Yankee Doodle. The lively tones of a fiddle drove me wild with delight, in my foolish, school-girl days; and I cannot keep my feet still when one rattles of money-musk or the Opera Reel even now, when enthusiasm is delicately toned down into graceful ease.

The truth is, Nature is full of music, and we who live in a mountainous country know how much of it is to be found outside of instruments and the human voice. In fact, the sweetest music I ever heard has come to me through the woods—not from the birds, but the whispering leaves. Have you ever listened—with your heart—and learned, by the faintest sound, the different voices of the trees—the quick, soft rustle of the maple; the stronger sound of the oak-leaves; the weird, ghostly shiver of the pine-needles? I know little of music, if anything out of heaven can touch a human soul more tenderly than these sounds. Then the birds—what joyous or solemn music they can make! Have you never felt your heart leap to the singing of a robin among the branches of an apple-tree in full blossom, or shiver and grow sad at sunset, when the cry of a lonely whip-poor-will comes wailing through the dusk?

There is the music of trees in the spring, when their blossoms are sweet and their leaves are just unfolding—soft, cheerful, happy music, full of tenderness and love. Then there is the low, drowsy music of the summer-time, when bumble-bees and lady-bugs and humming-birds fill the warm air with greedy droning as they plunder the wild flowers of honey.

Did you never close your eyes, half go to sleep, and listen to them, with a lazy consciousness that you could rest and enjoy, while those little, busy creatures were singing at their work? I have, a thousand times.

Then comes the fall, when the hills are burnt over with red and gold and brown. How the full, rough-edged leaves strike together, with a sound of copper and brass—with a rustle and shiver that makes one think of military funerals. Then comes the swift, rustling sound of ripe nuts rattling from burs and husks; the coarse, bass voices of the crows among the naked stubble-lots; the mellow crash of corn-stalks, as the cattle tread them; the slow, liquid grinding of cider-mills, and the sharp sound of the hackle, where flax is broken for the spinning-wheel.

After this, comes stormy music—fierce, high winds, whistling sharp and shrill through the long, naked branches of the woods, which answer them back with moans and sighs and wild shrieks that make you shiver at night and hide yourself under the bed-clothes.

When I was a little girl, sisters, my heart rose and fell to music like this till I suffered terribly, sometimes, without speaking a word to any one—for these are feelings which one never does talk of—there is no language that I ever learned which will express them. But I have never heard any music that could reach my soul like that which God gives us in the blossom season—the summer, the fall of late fruit—and the bleak, hard winter, when the clash of ice against ice has a sound that no man or woman can reach.

This is my idea of music, and that is scattered far and given to all men alike. You can't gather it up and deal it out in great, thundering gushes. It isn't to be got for five dollars a ticket. In fact, the best and sweetest things we have are given to the poor and rich just alike—free, gratis, for nothing.



LXXIII.

HUBBISHNESS.

Sisters:—The music I have just been writing about is not fashionable by any manner of means. Boston, the great central hub of all creation, can't bottle it up or engage it by the ton to astonish all creation with. She must have the manufactured article, and has sent all over the world to get it.

Every fiddler, flute-player, drummer, and curlecued horn-man in Europe has been brought over here to thunder-out and roll-off billows of sound for people to pay for and wonder at.

We have a Niagara of waters that astonishes the world. Now the people of Boston are determined to give us, in a great, wild, conglomeration of voices, a full Niagara of sound.

I am New England all over, from the top of my beehive-bonnet to the sole of my gaiter, but—confidentially, among ourselves—don't you think Boston takes a little too much on herself? That narrow-streeted, up-hilly city isn't all six of the New England States by a long shot.

My opinion is that Boston is putting on airs, and I for one don't mean to put up with it. I hate stuck-up people, and I despise stuck-up towns.

Of course it is my duty to see all things in behalf of the Society, and to do my best to lay them before you. I cannot say that my ideas of Boston have not toned down considerably since I came to New York. Still New England is New England, and Boston is Boston, if she does now and then make a tremendous old goose of herself, and sometimes threatens to cackle the hub all to pieces.

Cousin Dempster hasn't much to do in summer-time, so he was on hand for the Great High Jubilee; and E. E. was just crazy to go; for she is what you call musical, and goes right off the handle whenever a fellow that can't speak English plays on the piano or sings to her in some language that she don't know a word of.

Well, we went, and found Boston just running over with people. Every house along the crooked streets had one or two flags a-streaming from the roof, or out of the windows—star-spangled banners tangled-up with red and yellow and all sorts of colors; some with eagles, some without, but making every street gorgeous, as if the Fourth of July had burst out before its time.

The Coliseum is a tremendous building, big enough to roof-in forty thousand people, and leave room for the whole swarm of drummers, toot-horners, piano-thrashers, blacksmiths, anvils, and swivel-guns, with a thousand people to blow, thrash, and blast them off, and twenty thousand singers behind, ready to pile in the thunder of their voices.

The Coliseum is grand, barny in its structure, and all outdoorish when you get into it; but there is a good deal to see before you do get into it. The streets were just jammed-up with people when we came in sight of the great building, which stands out in a bare piece of ground, without a tree near it, and the hottest sun you ever wilted under beating down on everything around it, till I felt as if approaching the mouth of a great New England brisk oven, heated to bake a thousand tons of beans in. The streets were blocked with people.

The little wooden bridges built over the railroads were creaking under the tramp of a never-ending crowd. The street cars were crowded like beehives till the horses could not move, and some of the cars broke down, choking up the track.

Female women, with red books in their hands, scrambled through the crowd. Little tents and shanties were scattered all about, everybody talked fast and loud—some in one language, some in another. It was like going into the Tower of Babel, with all the languages in full blast.

From one of the shanties we heard the sound of a loud, eager, wild voice, as of some fellow going to be hung, and wrestling for his life.

"What is that?" says I to Dempster. "What on earth are they doing in there?"

"Oh, it's a prayer-meeting," says he; "some man is wrestling with the Lord in behalf of sinful souls."

"Oh, that's it," says I, just disgusted: "Well, I hope he'll get through with his wrestling before we come this way again. To haul religion and force prayers into such a crowd as this, is making a farce of Christianity. We have churches for such things, and the calm of a holy Sabbath set aside for the service of God. Who has time to think of such things here?"

"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child a-dragging after us.

We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.



LXXIV.

THUNDERS OF MUSIC.

Well, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.

It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of them—benches, benches, benches—crowded down and running over with people, all in a state of bewildering commotion—humming, whispering, and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.

You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of it, thousands and thousands with crimson books fluttering in their hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the singers—almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books in motion.

Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling, and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.

Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down, scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a grand sight, I must say that—grand, but hubby.

It was the German day, Cousin Dempster said. England had had her turn, France had flared up, and now Germany was to splurge just as much as she was a mind to.

Well, Germany did splurge, but she began with a loud, deep, woe-begone rush of music, that seemed to roll out from a graveyard where everybody lay uneasy in his grave and was begging to get out. This ended off when the day closed with a dreary, low complaint, as if they had begged long enough and gave up. Now and then they broke in with a grand crash that made me start from my seat, and went off in a low wail, with a storm of music between.

Something lively followed the first moan. Then a lady got up and sang all alone by herself, and her voice went floating through that great barny place, full, loud, and clear, as if ten thousand nightingales—not that I ever saw or heard a nightingale in my life, but I persist in it—as if ten thousand nightingales had broken loose in a swamp of wild roses.

"Who on earth is that?" says I to E. E.

"Madame Puschka Leutner," says she, clasping her hands. "Isn't she delicious?"

Then out E. E. drew her handkerchief and set it flying.

"I never heard anything like it, so strong, so sweet, so spreading," says I, flirting out my own handkerchief with enthusiasm. "The human voice is something worth while in the way of music after all."

It was no use saying more, for up jumped all the thousands of people in that great encampment, out went a swarm of white handkerchiefs, flocking together like a host of frightened seagulls, and the roar of the people went up like thunder.

Then a great band of men, mostly with yellow beards and rosy faces, got on their feet, and went at the fiddles, the twisted horns, the drums and things, like crazy creatures, and the way the music rose, and swelled, and thundered out was enough to drive one crazy.

Once more that great crowd burst in with yells and shouts, and a wild storm of praise. Then one of the yellow-haired men stood up alone with a wide-mouthed toot-horn, made of bright brass, in his hand. After looking around a minute, he just put the horn to his mouth, and blew a slow, long blow. Then he went at it tooth and nail, bringing out great round tones that seemed as if they never would grow faint or die away.

I have heard a great many toot-horns in my life; in fact, I have blown a tin one myself to call the men folks in to dinner; but never did I hear anything like that. It was what Cousin E. E. called wonderful—so-low.

I couldn't quite agree with her there, for to me it seemed wonderfully loud and riotous, but it was enough to make one in love with brass toot-horns forever.

By and by something happened that just took the starch out of my New England soul. There, in the midst of all those dashy singers, one hundred and fifty men and women of the colored persuasion rose up in a human thunder-cloud, and broke into that noble song of freedom, which is a glory to one New England woman, and a glory to New England, for no better thing has been written since the "Star Spangled Banner:"

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming Lord."

Oh, sisters! there mightn't have been the highest-priced music in those colored voices, but the words are enough to wake up a dead warrior; they went through and through me as the wind stirs a forest. It was something to hear those dusky-faced freedmen chanting the glory of their own emancipation—something better than music, I can tell you. But the thrill of the thing was all gone when twenty thousand white people, with drums, trumpets, fiddles, organs, everything and every creature that could make a noise, thundered in, and bore all the sentiment off in a wild whirlpool of thunder.

I do wish the white people would stop helping the colored population so much. They only drown them out and stifle them. Why couldn't the jubilant darkies be left to sing their own song, and rush on with old John Brown without being whirlpooled up in twenty thousand white voices. They could have stood their own without help, I reckon.

There was a little resting spell after the darkies sat down; then came a great heaving crash and storm of music. Everything from a jew's-harp to an organ was set a-going, and behind them thousands of women sent up their voices amid a crash of anvils, the thunder of guns, and the ringing of bells that plunged one headlong into a volcano of sound that was neither music, nor thunder, nor an earthquake, but altogether a stampede and whirlwind of noises that engulfed you, body and soul. Ring—crash-bang—thunder rolling, rolling—oceans in tumult—whirlwinds of sound—armies crashing together—the world at an end!

That was what it seemed like to me. Sisters, I haven't a nerve left in my body; my temples throb, my heart feels as if it had been blown up with brass horns. There is a drum beating in each temple. Oh, if I could only hear a robin sing, or a brook in full flow—anything soft, and low, and sweet—it would be a relief.



LXXV.

SARATOGA TRUNKS.

Dear sisters:—Do you know where Long Branch is? I reckon not, owing to its being a sandy slip, cut off from the edge of New Jersey, and not much of a place over two months in the year; it hasn't got into the geography books as a school item of importance, though, if a President or two more should settle in there, it might lift it a notch higher.

But in duty bound, I am here in pursuit of my great social mission, and can tell you, confidently, that Long Branch is a great watering-place, brim full, and running over with fashion once a year, when the hot sun drives all the upper-crust people out of New York, and everybody that is anybody feels the want of extra washing.

When I speak of watering-places, do not understand that I mean a tavern corner with some brook emptying itself into a huge wooden trough for horses to drink out of. Of course, that is our Vermont idea; with a willow-tree shading the trough. That, no doubt, gave the name here. But the two things are no more alike than trout streams are like the broad ocean.

I ask no questions, always finding it best to wait and watch, and learn for myself; but when Dempster asked me if I would like to go down to a watering-place in New Jersey, I asked him if there wasn't Croton Water enough in the pipes for all the horses they kept.

Dempster laughed, and said it was salt water he was thinking of, and asked, right on that, if I had got a bathing-dress?

"A bathing-dress," says I. "Goodness, gracious, no. When I bathe, as a general thing, I—that is—I take off—"

Here I broke off, and felt myself turning red. I declare, Cousin Dempster has a way of putting things upon you for explanation, which I, as a single lady, with expectations, of course, find embarrassing.

Just then, E. E. came in, all of a flurry about her trunks; she wanted more and must have 'em, she said. Seventeen Saratoga trunks, and a basket or two, were just nothing to what she needed. Dempster must go out and get half a dozen more. Why, her fluted skirts alone filled three trunks.

Dempster went. To own the truth, he is an obedient creature as ever wore coat and—well pocket-handkerchiefs. It wasn't long before a lot of trunks—big enough for country school-houses—were piled into the hall, and then Cousin E. E. began to revel. Her bed was crowded and loaded down with skirts, dresses, shawls, bonnets, round hats, broad flats, peaked caps. You never saw such heaps and mountains of clothes; such a litter of small things; such stacks of boots and shoes.

It really seemed as if she was fitting out an army of feminines. Even Cecilia was down on her knees packing, and E. E. was deep in a high trunk with her slippers half dropping from her feet as she punched things in and pressed them down. The help, black and white, kept running up and downstairs like hens with their necks wrung. Every few minutes there came a ring at the door, and paper-boxes and bundles were set down in the hall, and struggled upstairs when any of the help thought it worth while to bring them, which was once in about ten minutes, all morning.