Children play on this white, shining, sandy beach, under the leafless sycamore; they look for no shade, they would find no shade; there is neither rock, nor shrub, nor evergreen-tree,—nothing but the white sand, and the dead sycamore, and in the topmost branches the halcyon's great nest.

Is it not a place for children? A little flourish of imagination, and we see them,—Silas, who beats the drum, and Columbia, who carries the flag, manifest leaders of the wild little company, mermen and mermaids all; and the music is fit for the Siren, and the beauty would shame not Venus.

Suppose we stroll home to their fathers, like respectable earth-keeping creatures: the depths of human hearts have sometimes proved full of mystery as the sea; and human faces sometimes glisten with a majesty of feeling or of thought that reduces ocean-splendor to the subordinate part of a similitude.

There is Andrew, father of Silas,—Andrew Swift, says the sign. He dwells in Salt Lane, you perceive, and he deals in ship-stores,—a husband and father by no means living on sea-weed. A yellow-haired little man, shrewd, and a ready reckoner. Of a serious turn of mind. Deficient in self-esteem; his anticipations of the most humble character. A sinner, because fearful and unbelieving: for what right has a man to be such a man as to inspire himself with misgiving? But his offences offset each other: for, if he doubted, Andrew was also obstinate. And obstinacy alone led him into ventures whose failure he expected: as when he laid out the savings of years in the purchase of goods, wherewith he opened those ship-stores in Salt Lane. Ship-stores! that sounds well. One might suppose I referred to blocks of marble-faced buildings, instead of three shelves, three barrels, and their contents! The obstinacy of Andrew Swift was the foundation of his fortune. Men have built on worse.

His opposite neighbor was one Silas Dexter, a flag- and banner-maker, who went into business in Salt Lane sometime during that memorable year of Andrew's venture. Apparently this young man was no better off than Swift, between whom and himself a friendly intercourse was at once established; but he had the advantage of a quick imagination and a sanguine temperament; also the manly courage to look at Fortune with respectful recognition, as we all look at royalty,—even as though he had sometime been presented,—not with a snobbish conceit which would seem to defy her Highness.

Indeed, he was such a man as would find exhilaration of spirit even in the uncertainties of his position. The sight of his banners waving from the sign-post, showing all sorts of devices, the flags flowing round the walls of his shop, enlivening the little dark place with their many gorgeous colors, sufficed for his encouragement. Utter ruin could not have ruined the man. He could not have failed with failure. Some sense of this fact he had, and he lived like one who has had his life insured.

Not a creature looked upon him but was free to the good he might derive. The sparkling eyes, quick smile, and manly voice, the active limbs and generous heart, seemed at the service of every soul that breathed. Trashy thought and base utterance could not cheat his soul of her integrity; the vileness of Salt Lane had nothing to do with him.

And I cannot account for this by bringing his wife forward. For how came he by this wife, except by the excellence and soundness of the virtue which preferred her to the world, and made him preferred of her? Still, you see the ripe cherry, one half full, beautiful, luscious, the other a patch of skin stretched over the pit, worthless and sad to view. This, but for his choice and hers, might have served as an emblem of Dexter.

She was her husband's partner in a twofold sense: for it was DEXTER & CO. on the sign-board, and Jessie was represented by the Company. Of that woman I cannot refrain from saying what was so gracefully said of "the fair and happy milkmaid,"—"All the excellences stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge."

The effect of these diverse influences, his wife Jessie in the house, and his neighbor Andrew to the opposite, kept the spirit of Silas Dexter at work like a ploughing Pegasus. He was full of pranks as a boy, but malice found poor encouragement of him. Andrew was his garden, and he was Andrew's sun: he shone across the lane with a brightness and a warmth sufficient to quicken the poorest earth; and the crops he perfected were various, all of the kind that flourish in heavy soil, but various and good. Do you think the good Samaritan could take the leprosy?

The sort of connection a man is bound to make between the everlasting spirit-world and this transient mortal state Dexter proved in his humble way. I doubt if spiritualists would have accepted his service as a medium. He was neither profane nor imbecile; but he sat at the foot of a ladder the pure ones could not fail to see, and by which they would not disdain to descend. If they chose to come his way, the white robes would take no taint.

Success attended Dexter with a modest grace, and Swift shared in the good fortune. I do not say the profits of either shop were forty millions a year. "Keep the best of everything," said Silas to Andrew; "don't be too hard on 'em; they'll come after they've found your way." And Swift proved the wisdom of such counsel, and tried to get the better of his grim countenance while waiting on the customers Dexter directed to his side: gradually succeeding,—proving down there in Salt Lane the truth of that ancient saying, "Art is the perfection of Nature."

So these two men lived like brothers; and if it was a pleasant thing to listen to Dexter's jokes and laughter, scarcely less profitable was it to hear Swift praise the flag- and banner-maker when he was out of sight.

Dexter's popularity had a varied character. Sea-captains and ship-builders, circus-men, aeronauts, politicians, engineers, target-companies, firemen, the military, deputies of all sorts, looked over his goods, consulted his taste, left their orders. His interest in the several occupations represented by the men who frequented his shop, his ingenuity in devising designs, his skill and expedition in supplying orders, his cheerful speech, and love of talk, and fun, gave the shopman troops of "friends." He could read the common mass of men at a glance, and he was justifiable in the devices he made use of in order to bring his customers into the buying mood: for what he said was true,—they could satisfy themselves in his store, if anywhere.

Dexter understood himself, and Jessie understood him: such folk make no pretences; they are ineffably real.

"Principles, not Men," was the banner-maker's motto. You might have seen the flag on which it was painted with a mighty flourish (and very poor result) in his old shop in the old time. That painting was his first great effort, that flag his first possession; he could not have parted with it, so he said, and so he believed, for any sum whatever.

"Principles, not Men": he studied that sentiment in all his graver moments, when he chanced to be alone in his shop,—you may guess with what result, moral and philosophical.

Andrew Swift used to say to his wife, that, when Dexter was studying his thoughts, it was better to hear him than the minister: and verily he did put time-serving to shame by the distinct integrity of his warm speech, and his eloquence of action.

Dexter married Jessie the day before he opened his flag-shop. She had long been employed by his employer, and when she promised to be his, she drew her earnings from the bank, and invested all with him. This was not prudence, certainly, but it was love. Dexter might have failed in business the first year,—might have died, you know, in six months, or even in three, as men do sometimes. It was not prudence; but Jessie—young lady determined on settlements!—Jessie was looking for life and prosperity, as the honest and earnest and young have a right to look in a world God created and governs. And if failure and death had in fact choked the path that promised so fair, clear of regret, free of reproaches, glad even of the losses that proved how love had once blessed her, she would have buried the dead, and worked for the retrieval of fortune.

They began their housekeeping-romance back of the shop in two little rooms. Do you require the actual measurement? There have been wider walls that could contain greatly less.

"How big was Alexander, pa? The people called him great."

They considered the sixpences of their outlay and income with a purpose and a spirit that made a miser of neither. But there was no delusion indulged about the business. Jessie never mistook the hilarity of Silas for an indication of incalculable prosperity. Silas never understood her gravity for that of discontent and envy. They never spent in any week more than they earned. They counted the cost of living, and were therefore free and rich. "She was never alone," as Sir Thomas Overbury said of that happy milkmaid, "but still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones." And Dexter loved her with a valiant constancy that spoke volumes for both.

His days were spent, according to the promise advertised, in endeavors to please the public; but, oh, if the public that traded with and liked to patronize him, if the young lads and the old boys who hung about his counters, could have seen him when he shut his shop-door behind him, and went into the back-room where Jessie and he devised the patterns, where she embroidered and lived, where she cooked and washed and ironed, where she nursed Columbia, their daughter, one glance at all this, made with the heart and the understanding, would—ah! might, have been to some of them worth more than all Dexter's pleasant stones, and all the contents of the shop, and all the profits the flag-maker would ever make by trading.

For I can hardly believe, though this story be but of "common life," when I take up the newspapers and glance along the items I am constrained to doubt, that such people as Silas and Jessie live in every house, in every alley, lane, and street, in every square and avenue, on every farm, wherever walls inclose those divine temples of which Apostles talked as belonging to God, which temples, said they, are holy! I can hardly believe that Love, void of fear and of selfishness, speaks through all our domestic policy, and devises those curious arrangements, political, theological, social, whose result has approval and praise, it may be, in the regions of outer darkness.

Dark faces, whose sleekness hides a gulf of waters more dead than those of the dreadful Dead Sea, rise between me and the honest, brave face of Silas,—dreary flats, whose wastes are not figured in utter barrenness by the awful African deserts, where ranks upon ranks of women, like Jessie at least in love and fidelity, must stand, or—"where is the promise of His coming?"

The daughter of Silas and Jessie was called Columbia in honor of some valiant enterprise, nautical or other, which charmed the patriotic spirit of the father; and as he was not a fighting man or a speaking man, he offered this modest comment on the brilliant event by way of showing his appreciation.

Columbia Dexter was a great favorite with the children of Salt Lane for various reasons, and among them this, that in all parades and processions she supplied the banners. Columbia's friend of friends was Silas, son of Andrew Swift,—and thus we come among the children of the neighbors.

They were not dependent on Salt Lane for a play-ground. They had the Long Wharf. Ships from the most distant foreign shores deposited their loads of freightage there, and the children were free to read the foreign brands, to guess the contents, and to watch the sailors,—free to all brain-puzzling calculations, and to clothes-soiling, clothes-rending feats, among the treasures of the ship-hold and the wharf: no mean privileges, with the roar of ocean in their ears, and great ships with their towering masts before their eyes. They had the wharf for bustle, confusion, excitement,—and for this they loved it; but the beach that stretched beyond they had for quiet, and there, for miles and miles, curious shells and pretty pebbles, fish-bones and crabs and sand, sea-weed fine and fair, and the old sycamores, the old dead trees, in the tops of whose white branches the halcyon built its nest. Well the children knew the winter days, so bright and mild, when the brave birds were breeding. Well they knew when the young kingfisher would begin to make his royal progress, with such safe dignity descending, branch by branch, until he could no longer resist Nature, but must dash out in a "fine frenzy" for the bounding waves!

Silas Swift, Dexter's namesake, was a grave, sturdy, somewhat heavy-looking fellow, whose brain teemed with thoughts and projects of which his slow-moving body offered no suggestion. Whoever prophesied of them did so at his hazard. Let him play at his will, and the children even were amazed. But this could not happen every day. Set him at work, and the sanguine were in despair. This was because, when work must be done, he deliberated, and did the thing that must be; so that, while misapprehension fretted gently sometimes because of his dulness, he was preparing for that which was not hoped. Celerity enough when he had come to a decision, but no sign or token till he had come to that.

The first exercise of his imagination trusted to the inspection of others was in behalf of Columbia Dexter, with intent to moderate her grief over a dead kitten which they buried in the sand under the sycamore-tree, the procession carrying banners furled and decorated with badges of mourning. Silas made a monument then and there in the high noon of a halcyon day: carved on a pine board which had served for a bier was the face of Tabby, surrounded with devices intended to represent the duration of her virtues. His work consoled Columbia, and inspired him to a more ambitious enterprise, namely, the carving of the same in a block of gypsum, which work of art Dexter obtaining sight of declared that it would have done credit to an artist, and set it on his mantel-shelf between two precious household cards lettered in gilt as follows "Union is Strength," and "Principles, not Men."

I suppose no children ever led a happier life,—the special joy of childhood being in sport, and food, and liberty, and the love of those who own them. They basked in the sun; they were busy with sport, fretted by no cares; kind words directed them. They lived in the midst of illusions, like princes, or fairies, or spirits,—like children. They followed about with processions, training in the rear of every train-band, keeping time with the march of the happy Sunday-schools, when they had their celebrations. Young Silas could be trusted with the care of Columbia, and hand in hand, like brother and sister, they went. Especially were they proud, if the procession carried one of Dexter's flags. Silas, no doubt, had suggested a point of the device, or Columbia had worked a corner.

When Dexter would go on board ship, or to some lodge, with the flags which had been ordered of him, in anticipation of voyages and processions, the children often accompanied him. I see them walking shyly in the rear, and looking up to the father of the little girl with the reverence he deserved. By-and-by would they grow wise and feel ashamed of this? Will you see the fair Columbia, whom the captain pats so kindly on the head, smiling broadly when he hears her name, will you see her, a woman grown, attending her father on such errands? And if you see her not, will the reason be such as proves her worthy to be old Dexter's daughter? Will you hear her saying to her friends, as now, "Guess who worked those flowers," while the target-shooters march past, carrying their blue silk banner, royal with red roses? She and Silas often run panting in the wake of great processions; they would not for the world miss seeing the wide, fluttering folds of the Stars and Stripes, or it might be the conquering St. George, or the transparencies they were all so busy over a day or two ago. Their speed will soon abate, and why?

Human beings are not children forever. Maturity must not manifest itself as childhood does. Ah, but "Principles, not Men"! Is any truth involved in that beyond what Silas recognizes in his trade? Is there another reason which shall have power to make Columbia some day stand coolly on the sidewalk, while her heart is beating fast,—which shall induce her to point out the mottoes on the banners, and the various devices, to another, without trembling in the voice or tears in the eye? If ever she shall glide along the streets, she whose early race-course was Salt Lane, if ever like a lady she shall walk there, will it be at the price of forgetfulness of all this humble sport and joy,—as a sustainer of feeble "social fictions," and a violator of the great covenant?

To the boy and girl it was not a question whether all their lives these relations should continue, and this play go on; but even to them, as children, a question that seriously concerned them, and in whose discussion they bore serious part, arose.

The old building Dexter occupied was becoming unfit for tenants. It had been patched over and over, until it was no longer safe, and agents refused to insure it. The proprietor accordingly determined to pull it down.

A change to a better locality had often been suggested to Dexter; but his invariable reply was, that "people shouldn't try to run before they were able to walk,—he was satisfied with Salt Lane and his neighbors": though of late he had made such replies with gravity, thinking of his daughter.

And now that the necessity was facing him, he met it like a man. He talked the matter over with his wife, and the claim of their child was urgent in the heart of each while they talked, and it could not have surprised either when suddenly their hopes met in her benediction. For Columbia's sake they must find a pleasant place for the new nest, some nook where beauty would be welcome, and gentle grace, and quiet, and light, and fair colors, and sweet odors would be possible; so pure and fair a child she seemed to father Dexter, so did the mother's heart desire to protect her from all odious influences and surroundings, that, when the prospect of change was before them, it was in reference to her, as well as trade, that the Company would make it.

Swift was taken into their confidence, and he walked with the pair around the streets one evening to see the shop Dexter's eyes had fixed on. It was a modest tenement in a crowded quarter, on whose door and windows "To Let" was posted. Silas had been out house-hunting in the afternoon, and this place appeared to meet his wishes; he had inquired about the rent, it did not seem too high for a house so comfortable, and it was probable that by to-morrow night the family would, after a fashion, be settled within those walls.

They sat down on the door-step and talked about the change with serious gravity, mindful that the old tenement they were about to leave had sheltered them since their marriage-day, that they had prospered in Salt Lane, and that the change they were about to make would be attended with some risk. Andrew Swift sighed dolefully while Jessie or Silas Dexter alluded to these matters of past experience: it was no easy matter to talk him into a cheerful mood again; but the brave pair accomplished it on their way home, when certainly either of them had as much need of a comforter as he.

To have heard them, one might have supposed that no tears would be shed when the tenement so long occupied by the flag-maker should come down. Old Mortality will not be hindered in his thinking.

Andrew offered his son Silas to assist his neighbors in the labor of removal, and his wife came with her service; and the rest of Salt Lane was ready at the door to lend a helping hand, when it was understood that the life and soul of the lane was going away to High Street.

Dexter's face was unusually bright while the work of packing went on. He knew that for everybody's sake more light than usual must be diffused by him that day. You know how it is that the brave win the notable victories, when their troops have fallen back in despair, and would fain beat a retreat. It is the living voice and the flashing eye, the courage and the will. What is he, indeed, that he should surrender,—above all, in the worst extremity?

How is death even swallowed up in victory, when the beleaguered spirit dashes across the breach, and, unarmed, possesses life!

Dexter told Andrew Swift that Silas was worth a dozen draymen, and in truth he was, that day; for he, and every one, were animated by the spirit of the leader. Courage! at least for that day, though they dared not look beyond it.

Thus these people went to High Street: into the house with many rooms, four at least; into the rooms with many windows, and high ceilings, which you could not touch with your uplifted hand,—rooms whose walls were papered, and whose floors should have carpets, for Dexter said the house was leased for ten years, and they would make their home comfortable. What ample scope they had! Many a fancy they had checked before it became a wish in the old quarters, they were so cramped there, though never in danger of suffocation, Heaven knows. Grandly the great arch lifted over the old moss-grown roof. But now they need stifle no fancy of all that should come to them; there was room in the house, and behind it,—yes, a strip of ground in the rear, and against the brick wall an apricot-tree and a grape-vine! Very Garden of Eden: was it big enough for the Serpent?

It was a sight to see the happy family while they talked over their possessions.

Over the shop, fronting the street, was a large apartment, by common consent to be used for parlor and show-room: young Swift was to decorate this, Dexter said, Columbia should be his helper, and he and his wife would criticize the result. Dexter talked with a purpose when he made these arrangements, but he kept the purpose secret until the work was done.

In the three windows ornamental flags were hung, which should serve for signs from the street: this was young Swift's design. In the middle window, Columbia responded, should be the George Washington flag. Yes, and to the left Lafayette, with Franklin for the right. Even so. Then above the middle window they secured the gilded American eagle. Oh, the harmony that prevailed among the young decorators!

Then "Principles, not Men" remained to be disposed of. They did it in such a way that the gilded motto shone on the white wall. The mantel was a masterpiece of arrangement, and solely after Columbia's suggestions. There was the monumental cat for a centre-piece, with the more recent creations of Silas Swift for immediate surroundings, and a banner at either end floating from the shelf.

You can imagine, if your imagination is genial and kindly, how very queer and fanciful the room looked with these decorations; and the gentle heart will understand the loving humility, the pleasure, with which Jessie surveyed all, when the children's work was done.

It was a pretty scene when Dexter came up, sent by Silas for an opinion, while the latter kept the shop. At first he laughed a little, and exclaimed, while he walked about; then Jessie turned away, and gave him an opportunity to brush the tears from his eyes unobserved; but presently she began to circle round him, unconsciously it seemed, till she stood close beside him; then he took her hand and held it, and she knew what he was thinking, and that he was proud and happy.

"It beats all!" he said more than once. And Columbia was talking of Silas, showing his work, and repeating his words, till Dexter broke out,—

"We must keep Silas! We can't get along without Silas! He mustn't go back to Salt Lane. I'll teach him business in High Street."

And the father did not seem to notice when his child slipped away down the stairs, to the shop, to the lad, who was thinking rather sadly, that, now his work was done, there was no more chance for him here: she had come to make him smile as much by her own delight as by his satisfaction.

But all this excitement must pass off. And in spite of the general gladness and gratulation, probably a more lonely, homesick party could not have been easily found than the Dexter family in their new home.

Dexter could not reproach himself for his removal, as he thought the matter seriously over. It was a forced removal, and certainly he would have been without excuse, had he gone into worse quarters instead of better, since better he could afford. It was not extravagance, but homesickness, that tormented him.

He was too generous, when all was done, to torment his wife with such misgivings as he had; and erelong the trouble, for want of nursing, died, as most of this life's troubles will, after their shabby fashion. But, indeed, how can they help it? that, too, is the will of Nature.

And was not Dexter himself, in the new neighborhood as in the old? His customers were still of the same class. But his surroundings were of a superior character,—there was a better atmosphere prevailing in High Street, and more light in his house. He did not love darkness better.

Pretty and well-dressed women were to be seen in High Street, and they never, except by mistake or disaster, wandered through Salt Lane. Standing in his door, and observing them according to his thoughtful fashion, Dexter remembered that his daughter was growing rapidly into a tall, handsome girl, and foresaw that she could not always be a child. He saw young misses going past with their school-books in their hands, and if he followed them with his eyes as far as eyes could follow, it was not for any reason save such as should have made them love and trust the man. He was thinking so seriously about his daughter, up-stairs at work with her mother, embroidering scarfs and banners.

He had only Columbia. She learned fast, when she went with Silas Swift to the school in Salt Lane,—so they all said, and he knew she was fond of her book. He had no ambition to make a lady of Columbia,—oh, no! But he was looking forward, according to his nature, and—who could tell what future might wait on her? He based his expectations for his child on his own experience. Neither he nor Jessie had ever looked for such good fortune as they had; and a step farther, must it not be a step higher, and accordingly new prospects?

Prophecy is unceasing. In what does the prescience of love differ from inspiration?

One morning Dexter was sent for by the principal of the seminary of the town, to assist in the decoration of her school-room preparatory to the examination and exhibition of her pupils.

While at work there, aided by Silas Swift, who was now his assistant in business, and notable for his skill as a designer and painter and painter of transparencies, and whatsoever in that line was desired for public festivities, processions, illuminations, and general jubilation of any character,—while at work in the great school-room, Mr. Dexter was unusually silent.

This was no occasion for, there was no need of, much speaking or of merriment. It was not expected of him. He was not dealing with, while he worked for, others now, but he was dealt with constantly, to an extent that confounded and embarrassed him. He did not make the demonstrations people sometimes do in such a case, but was silent, and half sad. Everything that passed before him he saw, it made an impression rapid and deep on his mind. The pictures drawn and painted by the pupils, and hung around the walls for exhibition, the pupils themselves, passing in and out,—girls of all ages, ladies to look at, all of them,—suggested anew the question, Why should his daughter be shut off from the privileges of these? He felt ashamed when he asked. Yet the question would be answered; and without palliation, self-excusing, or retort, he meditated.

Finally he said to Silas Swift, who worked with him in silence broken only by question and answer that referred merely to their business,—

"Look!"—and his eyes followed a young girl who had been hunting for several minutes among the desks for a book.

The youth obeyed,—he looked, but seemed not to understand the flag-maker as quickly or as clearly as was expected of him.

"Columby," said Dexter, with a wink and a nod, that to his mind expressed everything.

"Oh, yes," said Silas, as if he understood.

His penetration was not put to further proof. The mere supposition of his apprehension satisfied his employer, who could now go on without embarrassment.

"She ought to come to school," said Dexter.

"Oh!" exclaimed Silas, with surprise sufficient to convince the father that the young man had not attempted to practise a deceit.

"Yes," said Dexter, "she ought, she's old enough,"—as if that were all he had been waiting for.

"I think so," answered Silas Swift, with a decision encouraging to hear, and final as to influence.

"You do? Yes, I ought to afford it, if I lived on a crust to manage the bills. Why not? What's the difference 'twixt her and the rest, I'd like to know?"

"She could beat the whole batch at her books," said Silas, not doubting that he spoke with moderation.

"Pretty quick, wasn't she?" said the pleased father. "Yes, I know Columby!"

"And she deserves it."

"Deserves! You don't think I've been waiting to find that out! Well, Sir, put it that way, I say, Yes, she does deserve it."

Dexter and young Swift, having spoken thus far, thought on in their several directions, with serious, steady, strong, far-reaching looks into the future.

Thus it was that Columbia Dexter took her place in the great school, where girls, it was said, were regarded and taught as responsible human beings.

Silas Swift looked so grave, whenever the families mentioned Dexter's resolution, that Columbia, who had made him repeat already many times his reflections and observations in the school-room that day when he and her father were employed in its decoration, said to him one morning, when they happened to be alone together,—

"I'm afraid you don't think well of what we're going to do."

Whereupon he, somewhat proudly for him, answered,—

"I told your father, when he asked me, what I thought, before he had made up his mind."

"What did you say?" she asked,—though she could have guessed correctly, had he insisted upon it, but Silas was not in the mood.

"I said it should be done," he answered, seriously.

"I should go to school?"

"Yes, it is but right."

"Then why do you look so solemn?"

"You're going away from us."

Her hand was lying quietly in his, when she answered,—

"Going away? I shall see you three times every day. What do you mean?"

"When there was your father and mother and me, 'us four, and no more,' there were not dozens to think about. You'll have dozens now."

"I hope they will be pleasant," she said, looking away, that he should not see how bright her eyes were, when his were so grave.

"I hope they will. And I'm sure of it. Never fear. I suppose, too, they must make you like themselves, some ways. I'd be glad, if I thought you'd make any of them like you."

"How's that?" she asked, half laughing, but she trembled as well. What would honest Silas say next, he was making such a very grave business out of this school-going?

"True,—modest,—sensible,—respectful,—a lady, ten times more than those they make up so fine," said he, slowly. And still he held her hand as quietly as if it did not thrill with quickening pulses; and his speech and composure showed what power of self-control the young man had,—for he was fearful when he looked forward, anticipating the change this year might bring to pass in and for Columbia Dexter.

But Dexter and Company looked forward with no forebodings, when they bought the needful school-books, and saw their daughter fairly occupied with them. They had not been ashamed to reveal their hopes and fears to the principal. She really listened in a way that made them love her, you will know how,—as if she had the interest of the girl at heart,—as though she would not deal so sacrilegiously with their dear child as to paste a few flashing ornaments upon her, worthless as dead fish-scales, and swear she was covered with pearls. Honest and loving sponsors! virtuous, confiding parents! they were ready to promise for Columbia; she went from their hands a pure, industrious, obedient girl, only fourteen; they were sure she would take pride in making good all deficiencies of her past education. And the woman promised in turn,—chiefly thinking, I infer, that here at least were responsible paymasters. Why not? She taught for a living. Only we never like to suppose that poets sing merely for money, or that kings reign for the sake of the crown; we do not imagine a statesman delights in his martyrdom for eight dollars a day. I know one woman who teaches because it is her vocation; she loves the work God allows her. But even the worst school that's used as a hot-bed could not have ruined a plant like this bearing the Dexter label.

Thus this great fact of the flag-makers' married life transpired,—their child went to school with the children of gentlemen. Dexter could tell that figure among dozens of girls; under one modest bonnet was a young face with brown eyes and brown hair, a fair, sweet countenance, which he loved with a love we will not dwell upon. In the sacred narrative, as in the sacred temple, is always a place hid from the eyes and the feet of the congregation. We may be all Gentiles here.

Like responsible sentinels, Dexter and Jessie stood at their post. Like debtors to the great universe, they made their calling sure. They were living thus peacefully while nations went to war, while panics taught the people it was not beneath their wisdom to look to the foundations they built their pride upon,—thus, while great world-events were going on that must concern every soul under the whole heaven. But never shall the man be lost in the multitude; and was it not, is it not, of incalculable importance that mortals by their own firesides should learn to believe in peace and good-will,—else how shall come the universal harmony?

Therefore I dwell thus on Dexter's humble fortunes. Let us not fear too much reverence, too patient observation; every living creature is one other evidence, speaking his yea or nay,—by joy or sorrow, shame or honor, testifying to the eternal laws of God.

Sometime during the last six months of Columbia's second year at the seminary among the books and new associates, Silas Swift had some strange secret experiences, which came to their inevitable expression when he told Mr. Dexter that he must leave his service. He perceived, he said, that he could not spend life in a shop,—he must have other employment. He hinted about the sea, but on that subject was not clear; but he was clear in this,—tired of his life, sick, and knew not the physician. Was a serpent distilling poison under the apricot-tree?

Dexter was amazed. Silas anticipated everything he said,—was prepared to answer all; and he answered in a manner that showed the flag-maker something instant and effective must be done. He talked the matter over accordingly with Andrew Swift, and the two men were at their wits' end; they did not understand, and knew not what to prescribe for the case, so desperate it seemed. But Jessie said, "Take him in for a partner, Silas. Let him stand for Company. You and I are one; so the sign, as it goes, is a fib, you know."

The two men looked at Jessie as if she had been an oracle. This very promotion of their son had long seemed to Swift and his wife the most desirable issue, of all their expectations; but they had not thought to look for it these many years. However, Andrew was ready to pay down, any day, whatever sum Silas Dexter should specify in order that his son might be admitted to equal partnership.

So they waited together till young Swift came into the little room back of the shop, where they were all looking for him. They laid their plan before him. What could he do? Neither explain himself, nor yet defy them all. He surrendered; and the next day the old sign, DEXTER & CO., meant what it had not meant the day before. The word of any one of these people was as good as a bond to the others; therefore no papers of agreement were made out, but Andrew paid down the money, because that was his way of satisfying himself,—and son Silas was now a partner.

Everybody concerned was so well pleased with this arrangement, that he whose pleasure in it was specially desired had not the heart to speak his mind, or to resolve further than that he would do his duty. Indeed, he soon began to believe that he was satisfied.

Young Silas thought he saw good reason for bringing forward his partner's motto into fresh conspicuity in these days: he believed in that motto, he purposed to work by it, but it was not merely his policy to give his faith manifestation. He made several efforts, after his own odd, original style, to impress the pretty Columbia with the significance of that sentiment. Often his talk with the young lady had the gravity and weight of a moral essay, and she took it well,—was not impatient,—would answer him as a child, "I know it is so, Silas,"—did not imagine how much these very lectures cost him, or that he delivered them with as much inward composure as an orator might be supposed to feel on the brink of a precipice, where the awful rocks and depths gave echo to his utterance.

Why should he so much disturb himself on her account?—she was so studious, so blameless, what great need of this oversight he was exercising continually?

Young Alexander, now Midshipman Alexander, once a cabin-boy, promoted step by step on the score of actual merit and brave service performed,—Midshipman Alexander, son of an old sailor's old widow, who lived in Salt Lane, to whom Andrew Swift and Silas Dexter and other well-disposed men had lent a helping hand when poverty had brought her to some desperate strait,—this young Alexander, who had been coming home once in every three years since his twelfth birthday, and who in the course of many years of voyages came to look on Dexter's house as his home on land, after his mother died,—he interfered with the peace of Silas Swift.

He returned from service, after every voyage, a taller, stronger, nobler, wiser, handsomer man. He had a career open before him; he could not fail of honorable fortune. Every inch a hero Alexander looked, and was; nobody ever tired of hearing his adventures; no one grew unbelieving, when he spoke of the future,—all things seemed so possible to him; and then he was really not possessed of the demon of vanity, the ill-shaped evil monster, but was straightforward, and earnest, and determined, and capable.

And Dexter, any one could see, was growing dreadfully proud of his Columbia.

Silas Swift felt the sands moving under his feet. He dared not build on a foundation so insecure. But, oh, he wished himself away from High Street, ten thousand, thousand miles! He fell into dreaming moods that did not leave him satisfied and cheerful. Surely, other quarters of the globe had other circumstances than these which kept him to a life so dull, under skies so leaden. Alas! the waving of the banners did not any more uplift him, leading him on as a good soldier to battles and victories. He tried to get the better of himself,—after the last visit of this Alexander, he was tolerably successful; he studied hard, ambitious to keep at least on an equality of learning with Columbia,—and he went far ahead of her, for certain desperate reasons. But when Dexter began to treat him with profound respect, as a man of learning should be treated, according to his notions, the poor young fellow, mortified and miserable, put away his books, and loathed his false position.

The old time to which through all prosperity Silas clung with fond fears, the dear old time was all over, he said to himself one day, when Columbia called him up into the parlor, clapping her hands ever suspecting that the theme might please another less,—there was but one for him as if he had been a slave, a signal he well understood, and was proud to understand,—when she asked him to bring the step-ladder, and to help her, for the curtains must come down from the show-room, it was going to be a parlor now, and no show-room again forever. With heavy misgivings, with a feeling that they were hard on to "the parting of the ways," Silas obeyed her.

Even so, according to her will was it that the drapery, the flags rich in patriotic portraiture, the Washington, the Franklin, and the Lafayette, must come down. Some pictures she had painted, some sketches she had made, were to take their place: her father had insisted on having them framed, and now they should hang on the walls.

He assisted Columbia without a word of comment. Now the room, she said, would no longer look hot and uncomfortable. There would be less dust to distract one on the walls. But Silas, the stickler for old things, thought jealously, "There's always a reason ready to excuse every change. It's pride that's to pay now,—she's getting ashamed of the shop."

And he remembered the queer look Alexander had cast around him the last time he entered that room; and he knew that this same Alexander was now expected home daily.

This was the rock, then, against which the sturdy craft of Silas was destined to strike and go to pieces! This was the whirlpool which should uproot the fairest tree and swing it to final ingulfing! Dark foreboding! sad fear! his heart was so concerned about Columbia Dexter. Alas for the halcyon days! it was winter indeed, but a winter worthy of Labrador.

So much she rejoiced in this midshipman's advancement, so proud of it she seemed,—she was so bold in prophecy where he was concerned, so manifestly fitted to appreciate a hero's career,—she could talk so long about him without every suspecting that the theme might please another less,—there was but one end likely, or desirable, for all this.

Then Alexander came. And his popularity waxed, instead of waning. So Silas at last gravely said to himself, after his sensible, moderate manner of dealing with that unhappy person, "If she and the young man were only married and settled, there the business would end; he should no longer be distracted, as he did not deny he had long been, on her account." That admission was fatal. It compelled him to ask himself sharply why he should be distracted. "What business was this of his? Did he not, above all things, desire that Columbia should be happy? Must she not be the best judge of what could make her happiness?" He tried to deal honestly with himself.

This endeavor led him to remark one morning to Columbia,—

"You and Alexander seem to be getting on finely."

"Oh, yes," said she,—"of course."

"I hope you always will," he continued, with a tragic vehemence of wish.

"Thank you, Silas; we shall, I think," she replied, with such an excess of gratitude, so he deemed it, that the poor fellow attempted no more.

All that day he thought and thought; and at night Silas Swift looked back from a corner of High Street at a building over whose door a flag was waving, and said to himself, "I was born as free as others,"—and he walked on silently, with himself for his dismal company.

It made no difference to him where he went, which path he took, he said; but he passed Salt Lane, and crossed Long Wharf, and walked down the beach, under the old sycamores, and wandered on. There was another seaport-town some miles down the coast; he was walking in that direction, but he did not acknowledge a purpose.

How splendid was the night! a night of magnificent constellations, of flashing auroras, of many meteors; and he saw the comet, which he and Columbia had looked for since its first announcement. But the heavens might as well have been "hung in black." Chilled by more than the wintry wind, he went his way. When the sun rose, he was still wandering on. Light, heaven-deep, shone on land and sea. He sat down to rest, and to order himself for future movements: for the town was now in sight; in an hour or two he should come to the busy streets; already he could discern the lofty spires, and the tall masts of the great vessels.

Yes,—he would find a situation on one of those ships. He would go out as supercargo to China, or India, or Spain. He could get a situation without difficulty, for he was well known in the town. Then, after he had sailed, word could go back to his father and mother.

So, then, he should go to sea? Of course. It was now arranged,—to foreign ports. He should see foreign people, and visit ancient places. The strange would have advantage over the familiar. He did not desire death. He had not that weakness, not being worn out by sickness, and having never used this life as abusing it. The friends he loved were living; his affections were strong. No, he could not think of death without a shudder, for Love was on the earth. Yet—what had he to do with Love? By her own election she was no more to him than a hundred others as good and fair might prove. Must he be so weak as to go through life regretting? Not he, Silas Swift!

By-and-by he rose up from the sand. I think his face must have resembled, then, the face of Elijah when the Lord inquied, with the still, small voice, "What dost thou here?" For, as he arose, he looked back on the waste by which he came,—his face turned homewards. Ay, and his steps likewise; and not with indecision, as though fearing when he surrendered to himself and One mightier.

Do they tell us filial reverence is a forgotten virtue? Silas was going home. Child, do you call him coward? Perhaps he was that,—no, not even yesterday, for the yesterday was capable of to-day! Do you, then, say, with a doubting smile, "Love! Love!" Yea, verily, Love! The mount of God takes up your word, so feebly and falsely spoken, and the echo is like thunder whose fire can destroy. Yea, Love! Two old faces, wrinkled, anxious. Eyes not so bright as once, dimmer to-day for tears; hair sprinkled with gray. Prayers broken by sobbing; trust disappointed; confidence violated. Ay, hearts that loved him first, and would surely love him always. Smiles first recognized of all he has ever seen, that could not change to frowns. They call him with tremulous tenderness, and the heart of Silas breaks with hearing. Bleed, poor heart, but let not those old hearts bleed!

The music of the inviting waves is not so soft as the sound of those feeble voices,—the freedom they promise is not powerful to tempt him; behold the arms that hang powerless yonder, and the hearts whose tides are more wondrous than those of the sea! The halcyon days shall never break through eternal ages on him, if he will walk on now in darkness.

"I will arise and go to my father."

The everlasting gates lift up their heads. The full-grown man reenters. Love drove him forth with stripes; there may have been who rejoiced and thought of fainting Ishmael. But against no man should this youth's hand be lifted. No son of the bond-woman he. Isaac, not Ishmael.

Love drove him forth with stripes; but a holier drew him home. By his past life's integrity the man was bound,—by the honor of a good name, that waited to be justified.

He went home to ask forgiveness of LOVE. Not of Youth and Beauty, but of Age and Trust.

He went home to souls which had proved themselves, each one, before the divine messenger in the hours of his absence.

Back, once more to break on a little circle gathered in an obscure corner of the town, talking his case over with distressed perplexity: to women disturbed with fears incredible to them,—to three, save one who did not seem distracted, and who looked around her with something like triumph, as a prophet might gaze when his word was verified. She was the youngest and the fairest of them all. How many times she had said, "He can explain. He will come soon. How can you fear for Silas?"

He went back to the dead silence that fell with his appearing. His mother was first to break it. With a faltering voice she spoke, but with the authority of maternal love and faith,—through sobs, but with authority.

"There! there! I told you! Now speak, Silas! quick! Did you find him?"—and, half fainting, she threw her arms about her son.

The father would fain speak with severity, but he failed in the attempt; he could no longer harbor his cruel fear, with the lad there before him.

"Silas, what do you mean, Sir? Here's Mr. Dexter's shop broke in, and his till robbed, and you off, and the Devil to pay! But Columby, there, said you had gone in search of the thief. Oh! oh!"

"Of course!" cried Dexter, the words rolling out as a cloud of smoke from a conspicuous safety-valve,—"I knew 't was all right. I'd expect the world to bu'st up as quick as for you to cheat us. I said it, I did, fifty times." And there Dexter choked, and was silent.

Ay, time for him to return! "Glory to God!" said Silas, and he looked around him, scanning every face, as a man might scan the faces of accusers.

More than any said or thought he saw in Columbia's eyes. Silent, pale, she merely sat gazing at him steadfastly. Oh, powers of speech, surrender! It was a gaze that made the young fellow turn from all, that the spasm of joy might pass, and leave him breath to declare himself like a man in the hearing of those present.

The words he spoke might not disturb the dreaming halcyon, but they must have brought angels nearer,—so near that not one there in the little back-room could escape the heavenly atmosphere.

Was Love born in a stable? Is Nature changed since, that a little room back of a shop should not be heaven itself, and the inmates kings and priests, though without the ermine and ephod?

Shall we sing the halcyon's song?



ON TRANSLATING THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.

Oft have I seen at some cathedral-door A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor Kneel to repeat his pater-noster o'er; Far off the noises of the world retreat; The loud vociferations of the street Become an undistinguishable roar. So, as I enter here from day to day, And leave my burden at this minster-gate, Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, The tumult of the time disconsolate To inarticulate murmurs dies away, While the eternal ages watch and wait.



HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

XI.

My wife and I were sitting at the open bow-window of my study, watching the tuft of bright red leaves on our favorite maple, which warned us that summer was over. I was solacing myself, like all the world in our days, with reading the "Schoenberg Cotta Family," when my wife made her voice heard through the enchanted distance, and dispersed the pretty vision of German cottage-life.

"Chris!"

"Well, my dear."

"Do you know the day of the month?"

Now my wife knows this is a thing that I never do know, that I can't know, and, in fact, that there is no need I should trouble myself about, since she always knows, and what is more, always tells me. In fact, the question, when asked by her, meant more than met the ear. It was a delicate way of admonishing me that another paper for the "Atlantic" ought to be in train; and so I answered, not to the external form, but to the internal intention.

"Well, you see, my dear, I haven't made up my mind what my next paper shall be about."

"Suppose, then, you let me give you a subject."

"Sovereign lady, speak on! Your slave hears!"

"Well, then, take Cookery. It may seem a vulgar subject, but I think more of health and happiness depends on that than on any other one thing. You may make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them with pictures, have them clean and airy and convenient; but if the stomach is fed with sour bread and burnt coffee, it will raise such rebellions that the eyes will see no beauty anywhere. Now in the little tour that you and I have been taking this summer, I have been thinking of the great abundance of splendid material we have in America, compared with the poor cooking. How often, in our stoppings, we have sat down to tables loaded with material, originally of the very best kind, which had been so spoiled in the treatment that there was really nothing to eat! Green biscuit with acrid spots of alkali,—sour yeast-bread,—meat slowly simmered in fat till it seemed like grease itself, and slowly congealing in cold grease,—and above all, that unpardonable enormity, strong butter! How often I have longed to show people what might have been done with the raw material out of which all these monstrosities were concocted!"

"My dear," said I, "you are driving me upon delicate ground. Would you have your husband appear in public with that most opprobrious badge of the domestic furies, a dish-cloth pinned to his coat-tail? It is coming to exactly the point I have always predicted, Mrs. Crowfield: you must write, yourself. I always told you that you could write far better than I, if you would only try. Only sit down and write as you sometimes talk to me, and I might hang up my pen by the side of 'Uncle Ned's' fiddle and bow."

"Oh, nonsense!" said my wife. "I never could write. I know what ought to be said, and I could say it to any one; but my ideas freeze in the pen, cramp in my fingers, and make my brain seem like heavy bread. I was born for extemporary speaking. Besides, I think the best things on all subjects in this world of ours are said not by the practical workers, but by the careful observers."

"Mrs. Crowfield, that remark is as good as if I had made it myself," said I.

"It is true that I have been all my life a speculator and observer in all domestic matters, having them so confidentially under my eye in our own household; and so, if I write on a pure woman's matter, it must be understood that I am only your pen and mouth-piece,—only giving tangible form to wisdom which I have derived from you."

So down I sat and scribbled, while my sovereign lady quietly stitched by my side. And here I tell my reader that I write on such a subject under protest,—declaring again my conviction, that, if my wife only believed in herself as firmly as I do, she would write so that nobody would ever want to listen to me again.

COOKERY.

We in America have the raw material of provision in greater abundance than any other nation. There is no country where an ample, well-furnished table is more easily spread, and for that reason, perhaps, none where the bounties of Providence are more generally neglected. I do not mean to say that the traveller through the length and breadth of our land could not, on the whole, find an average of comfortable subsistence; yet, considering that our resources are greater than those of any other civilized people, our results are comparatively poorer.

It is said, that, a list of the summer vegetables which are exhibited on New-York hotel-tables being shown to a French artiste, he declared that to serve such a dinner properly would take till midnight. I recollect how I was once struck with our national plenteousness, on returning from a Continental tour, and going directly from the ship to a New-York hotel, in the bounteous season of autumn. For months I had been habituated to my neat little bits of chop or poultry garnished with the inevitable cauliflower or potato, which seemed to be the sole possibility after the reign of green-peas was over; now I sat down all at once to a carnival of vegetables: ripe, juicy tomatoes, raw or cooked; cucumbers in brittle slices; rich, yellow sweet-potatoes; broad Lima-beans, and beans of other and various names; tempting ears of Indian-corn steaming in enormous piles, and great smoking tureens of the savory succotash, an Indian gift to the table for which civilization need not blush; sliced egg-plant in delicate fritters; and marrow-squashes, of creamy pulp and sweetness: a rich variety, embarrassing to the appetite, and perplexing to the choice. Verily, the thought has often impressed itself on my mind that the vegetarian doctrine preached in America left a man quite as much as he had capacity to eat or enjoy, and that in the midst of such tantalizing abundance he really lost the apology which elsewhere bears him out in preying upon his less gifted and accomplished animal neighbors.

But with all this, the American table, taken as a whole, is inferior to that of England or France. It presents a fine abundance of material, carelessly and poorly treated. The management of food is nowhere in the world, perhaps, more slovenly and wasteful. Everything betokens that want of care that waits on abundance; there are great capabilities and poor execution. A tourist through England can seldom fail, at the quietest country-inn, of finding himself served with the essentials of English table-comfort,—his mutton-chop done to a turn, his steaming little private apparatus for concocting his own tea, his choice pot of marmalade or slice of cold ham, and his delicate rolls and creamy butter, all served with care and neatness. In France, one never asks in vain for delicious cafe-au-lait, good bread and butter, a nice omelet, or some savory little portion of meat with a French name. But to a tourist taking like chance in American country-fare what is the prospect? What is the coffee? what the tea? and the meat? and above all, the butter?

In lecturing on cookery, as on house-building, I divide the subject into not four, but five grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third, Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea,—by which I mean, generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what not.

I affirm, that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned. I am aware that there exists another department, which is often regarded by culinary amateurs and young aspirants as the higher branch and very collegiate course of practical cookery, to wit, Confectionery,—by which I mean to designate all pleasing and complicated compounds of sweets and spices, devised not for health or nourishment, and strongly suspected of interfering with both,—mere tolerated gratifications of the palate, which we eat, not with the expectation of being benefited, but only with the hope of not being injured by them. In this large department rank all sorts of cakes, pies, preserves, ices, etc. I shall have a word or two to say under this head before I have done. I only remark now, that in my tours about the country I have often had a virulent ill-will excited towards these works of culinary supererogation, because I thought their excellence was attained by treading under foot and disregarding the five grand essentials. I have sat at many a table garnished with three or four kinds of well-made cake, compounded with citron and spices and all imaginable good things, where the meat was tough and greasy, the bread some hot preparation of flour, lard, saleratus, and acid, and the butter unutterably detestable. At such tables I have thought, that, if the mistress of the feast had given the care, time, and labor to preparing the simple items of bread, butter, and meat that she evidently had given to the preparation of these extras, the lot of a traveller might be much more comfortable. Evidently, she never had thought of these common articles as constituting a good table. So long as she had puff pastry, rich black cake, clear jelly, and preserves, she seemed to consider that such unimportant matters as bread, butter, and meat could take care of themselves. It is the same inattention to common things as that which leads people to build houses with stone fronts and window-caps and expensive front-door trimmings, without bathing-rooms or fireplaces or ventilators.

Those who go into the country looking for summer board in farm-houses know perfectly well that a table where the butter is always fresh, the tea and coffee of the best kinds and well made, and the meats properly kept, dressed, and served, is the one table of a hundred, the fabulous enchanted island. It seems impossible to get the idea into the minds of people that what is called common food, carefully prepared, becomes, in virtue of that very care and attention, a delicacy, superseding the necessity of artificially compounded dainties.

To begin, then, with the very foundation of a good table,—Bread: What ought it to be? It should be light, sweet, and tender.

This matter of lightness is the distinctive line between savage and civilized bread. The savage mixes simple flour and water into balls of paste, which he throws into boiling water, and which come out solid, glutinous masses, of which his common saying is, "Man eat dis, he no die,"—which a facetious traveller who was obliged to subsist on it interpreted to mean, "Dis no kill you, nothing will." In short, it requires the stomach of a wild animal or of a savage to digest this primitive form of bread, and of course more or less attention in all civilized modes of bread-making is given to producing lightness. By lightness is meant simply that the particles are to be separated from each other by little holes or air-cells, and all the different methods of making light bread are neither more nor less than the formation in bread of these air-cells.

So far as we know, there are four practicable methods of aerating bread, namely—by fermentation,—by effervescence of an acid and an alkali,—by aerated egg, or egg which has been filled with air by the process of beating,—and lastly, by pressure of some gaseous substance into the paste, by a process much resembling the impregnation of water in a soda-fountain. All these have one and the same object,—to give us the cooked particles of our flour separated by such permanent air-cells as will enable the stomach more readily to digest them.

A very common mode of aerating bread, in America, is by the effervescence of an acid and an alkali in the flour. The carbonic acid gas thus formed produces minute air-cells in the bread, or, as the cook says, makes it light. When this process is performed with exact attention to chemical laws, so that the acid and alkali completely neutralize each other, leaving no overplus of either, the result is often very palatable. The difficulty is, that this is a happy conjunction of circumstances which seldom occurs. The acid most commonly employed is that of sour milk, and, as milk has many degrees of sourness, the rule of a certain quantity of alkali to the pint must necessarily produce very different results at different times. As an actual fact, where this mode of making bread prevails, as we lament to say it does to a great extent in this country, one finds five cases of failure to one of success. It is a woful thing that the daughters of New England have abandoned the old respectable mode of yeast-brewing and bread-raising for this specious substitute, so easily made, and so seldom well made. The green, clammy, acrid substance, called biscuit, which many of our worthy republicans are obliged to eat in these days, is wholly unworthy of the men and women of the Republic. Good patriots ought not to be put off in that way,—they deserve better fare.

As an occasional variety, as a household convenience for obtaining bread or biscuit at a moment's notice, the process we earnestly entreat American housekeepers, in Scriptural language, to stand in the way and ask for the old paths, and return to the good yeast-bread of their sainted grandmothers.

If acid and alkali must be used, by all means let them be mixed in due proportions. No cook should be left to guess and judge for herself about this matter. There is an article, called "Preston's Infallible Yeast-Powder," which is made by chemical rule, and produces very perfect results. The use of this obviates the worst dangers in making bread by effervescence.

Of all processes of aeration in bread-making, the oldest and most time-honored is by fermentation. That this was known in the days of our Saviour is evident from the forcible simile in which he compares the silent permeating force of truth in human society to the very familiar household process of raising bread by a little yeast.

There is, however, one species of yeast, much used in some parts of the country, against which I have to enter my protest. It is called salt-risings, or milk-risings, and is made by mixing flour, milk, and a little salt together, and leaving them to ferment. The bread thus produced is often very attractive, when new and made with great care. It is white and delicate, with fine, even air-cells. It has, however, when kept, some characteristics which remind us of the terms in which our old English Bible describes the effect of keeping the manna of the ancient Israelites, which we are informed, in words more explicit than agreeable, "stank, and bred worms." If salt-rising bread does not fulfil the whole of this unpleasant description, it certainly does emphatically a part of it. The smell which it has in baking, and when more than a day old, suggests the inquiry, whether it is the saccharine or the putrid fermentation with which it is raised. Whoever breaks a piece of it after a day or two will often see minute filaments or clammy strings drawing out from the fragments, which, with the unmistakable smell, will cause him to pause before consummating a nearer acquaintance.

The fermentation of flour by means of brewer's or distiller's yeast produces, if rightly managed, results far more palatable and wholesome. The only requisites for success in it are, first, good materials, and, second, great care in a few small things. There are certain low-priced or damaged kinds of flour which can never by any kind of domestic chemistry be made into good bread; and to those persons whose stomachs forbid them to eat gummy, glutinous paste, under the name of bread, there is no economy in buying these poor brands, even at half the price of good flour.

But good flour and good yeast being supposed, with a temperature favorable to the development of fermentation, the whole success of the process depends on the thorough diffusion of the proper proportion of yeast through the whole mass, and on stopping the subsequent fermentation at the precise and fortunate point. The true housewife makes her bread the sovereign of her kitchen,—its behests must be attended to in all critical points and moments, no matter what else be postponed. She who attends to her bread when she has done this, and arranged that, and performed the other, very often finds that the forces of Nature will not wait for her. The snowy mass, perfectly mixed, kneaded with care and strength, rises in its beautiful perfection till the moment comes for fixing the air-cells by baking. A few minutes now, and the acetous fermentation will begin, and the whole result be spoiled. Many bread-makers pass in utter carelessness over this sacred and mysterious boundary. Their oven has cake in it, or they are skimming jelly, or attending to some other of the so-called higher branches of cookery, while the bread is quickly passing into the acetous stage. At last, when they are ready to attend to it, they find that it has been going its own way,—it is so sour that the pungent smell is plainly perceptible. Now the saleratus-bottle is handed down, and a quantity of the dissolved alkali mixed with the paste,—an expedient sometimes making itself too manifest by greenish streaks or small acrid spots in the bread. As the result, we have a beautiful article spoiled,—bread without sweetness, if not absolutely sour.

In the view of many, lightness is the only property required in this article. The delicate, refined sweetness which exists in carefully kneaded bread, baked just before it passes to the extreme point of fermentation, is something of which they have no conception, and thus they will even regard this process of spoiling the paste by the acetous fermentation, and then rectifying that acid by effervescence with an alkali, as something positively meritorious. How else can they value and relish bakers' loaves, such as some are, drugged with ammonia and other disagreeable things, light indeed, so light that they seem to have neither weight nor substance, but with no move sweetness or taste than so much white cotton?

Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply mixing it in the mass, without kneading, pouring it into pans, and suffering it to rise there. The air-cells in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven; the bread is as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that which is well kneaded as a raw Irish servant to a perfectly educated and refined lady. The process of kneading seems to impart an evenness to the minute air-cells, a fineness of texture, and a tenderness and pliability to the whole substance, that can be gained in no other way.

The divine principle of beauty has its reign over bread as well as over all other things; it has its laws of aesthetics; and that bread which is so prepared that it can be formed into separate and well-proportioned loaves, each one carefully worked and moulded, will develop the most beautiful results. After being moulded, the loaves should stand a little while, just long enough to allow the fermentation going on in them to expand each little air-cell to the point at which it stood before it was worked down, and then they should be immediately put into the oven.

Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. We cannot but regret, for the sake of bread, that our old steady brick ovens have been almost universally superseded by those of ranges and cooking-stoves, which are infinite in their caprices, and forbid all general rules. One thing, however, may be borne in mind as a principle,—that the excellence of bread in all its varieties, plain or sweetened, depends on the perfection of its air-cells, whether produced by yeast, egg, or effervescence, that one of the objects of baking is to fix these air-cells, and that the quicker this can be done through the whole mass the better will the result be. When cake or bread is made heavy by baking too quickly, it is because the immediate formation of the top crust hinders the exhaling of the moisture in the centre, and prevents the air-cells from cooking. The weight also of the crust pressing down on the doughy air-cells below destroys them, producing that horror of good cooks, a heavy streak. The problem in baking, then, is the quick application of heat rather below than above the loaf, and its steady continuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly dried into permanent consistency. Every housewife must watch her own oven to know how this can be best accomplished.

Bread-making can be cultivated to any extent as a fine art,—and the various kinds of biscuit, tea-rusks, twists, rolls, into which bread may be made, are much better worth a housekeeper's ambition than the getting-up of rich and expensive cake or confections. There are also varieties of material which are rich in good effects. Unbolted flour, altogether more wholesome than the fine wheat, and when properly prepared more palatable,—rye-flour and corn-meal, each affording a thousand attractive possibilities,—each and all of these come under the general laws of bread-stuffs, and are worth a careful attention.

A peculiarity of our American table, particularly in the Southern and Western States, is the constant exhibition of various preparations of hot bread. In many families of the South and West, bread in loaves to be eaten cold is an article quite unknown. The effect of this kind of diet upon the health has formed a frequent subject of remark among travellers; but only those know the full mischiefs of it who have been compelled to sojourn for a length of time in families where it is maintained. The unknown horrors of dyspepsia from bad bread are a topic over which we willingly draw a veil.

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Next to Bread comes Butter,—on which we have to say, that, when we remember what butter is in civilized Europe, and compare it with what it is in America, we wonder at the forbearance and lenity of travellers in their strictures on our national commissariat.

Butter, in England, France, and Italy, is simply solidified cream, with all the sweetness of the cream in its taste, freshly churned each day, and unadulterated by salt. At the present moment, when salt is five cents a pound and butter fifty, we Americans are paying, I should judge from the taste, for about one pound of salt to every ten of butter, and those of us who have eaten the butter of France and England do this with rueful recollections.

There is, it is true, an article of butter made in the American style with salt, which, in its own kind and way, has a merit not inferior to that of England and France. Many prefer it, and it certainly takes a rank equally respectable with the other. It is yellow, hard, and worked so perfectly free from every particle of buttermilk that it might make the voyage of the world without spoiling. It is salted, but salted with care and delicacy, so that it may be a question whether even a fastidious Englishman might not prefer its golden solidity to the white, creamy freshness of his own. Now I am not for universal imitation of foreign customs, and where I find this butter made perfectly, I call it our American style, and am not ashamed of it. I only regret that this article is the exception, and not the rule, on our tables. When I reflect on the possibilities which beset the delicate stomach in this line, I do not wonder that my venerated friend Dr. Mussey used to close his counsels to invalids with the direction, "And don't eat grease on your bread."

America must, I think, have the credit of manufacturing and putting into market more bad butter than all that is made in all the rest of the world together. The varieties of bad tastes and smells which prevail in it are quite a study. This has a cheesy taste, that a mouldy,—this is flavored with cabbage, and that again with turnip, and another has the strong, sharp savor of rancid animal fat. These varieties, I presume, come from the practice of churning only at long intervals, and keeping the cream meanwhile in unventilated cellars or dairies, the air of which is loaded with the effluvia of vegetable substances. No domestic articles are so sympathetic as those of the milk tribe: they readily take on the smell and taste of any neighboring substance, and hence the infinite variety of flavors on which one mournfully muses who has late in autumn to taste twenty firkins of butter in hopes of finding one which will simply not be intolerable on his winter table.

A matter for despair as regards bad butter is that at the tables where it is used it stands sentinel at the door to bar your way to every other kind of food. You turn from your dreadful half-slice of bread, which fills your mouth with bitterness, to your beefsteak, which proves virulent with the same poison; you think to take refuge in vegetable diet, and find the butter in the string-beans, and polluting the innocence of early peas,—it is in the corn, in the succotash, in the squash,—the beets swim in it, the onions have it poured over them. Hungry and miserable, you think to solace yourself at the dessert,—but the pastry is cursed, the cake is acrid with the same plague. You are ready to howl with despair, and your misery is great upon you,—especially if this is a table where you have taken board for three months with your delicate wife and four small children. Your case is dreadful,—and it is hopeless, because long usage and habit have rendered your host perfectly incapable of discovering what is the matter. "Don't like the butter, Sir? I assure you I paid an extra price for it, and it's the very best in the market. I looked over as many as a hundred tubs, and picked out this one." You are dumb, but not less despairing.

Yet the process of making good butter is a very simple one. To keep the cream in a perfectly pure, cool atmosphere, to churn while it is yet sweet, to work out the buttermilk thoroughly, and to add salt with such discretion as not to ruin the fine, delicate flavor of the fresh cream,—all this is quite simple, so simple that one wonders at thousands and millions of pounds of butter yearly manufactured which are merely a hobgoblin-bewitchment of cream into foul and loathsome poisons.

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The third head of my discourse is that of Meat, of which America furnishes, in the gross material, enough to spread our tables royally, were it well cared for and served.

The faults in the meat generally furnished to us are, first, that it is too new. A beefsteak, which three or four days of keeping might render practicable, is served up to us palpitating with freshness, with all the toughness of animal muscle yet warm. In the Western country, the traveller, on approaching a hotel, is often saluted by the last shrieks of the chickens which half an hour afterward are presented to him a la spread-eagle for his dinner. The example of the Father of the Faithful, most wholesome to be followed in so many respects, is imitated only in the celerity with which the young calf, tender and good, was transformed into an edible dish for hospitable purposes. But what might be good housekeeping in a nomadic Emir, in days when refrigerators were yet in the future, ought not to be so closely imitated as it often is in our own land.

In the next place, there is a woful lack of nicety in the butcher's work of cutting and preparing meat. Who that remembers the neatly trimmed mutton-chop of an English inn, or the artistic little circle of lamb-chop fried in bread-crumbs coiled around a tempting centre of spinach which can always be found in France, can recognize any family-resemblance to these dapper civilized preparations in those coarse, roughly hacked strips of bone, gristle, and meat which are commonly called mutton-chop in America? There seems to be a large dish of something resembling meat, in which each fragment has about two or three edible morsels, the rest being composed of dry and burnt skin, fat, and ragged bone.

Is it not time that civilization should learn to demand somewhat more care and nicety in the modes of preparing what is to be cooked and eaten? Might not some of the refinement and trimness which characterize the preparations of the European market be with advantage introduced into our own? The housekeeper who wishes to garnish her table with some of those nice things is stopped in the outset by the butcher. Except in our large cities, where some foreign travel may have created the demand, it seems impossible to get much in this line that is properly prepared.

I am aware, that, if this is urged on the score of aesthetics, the ready reply will be,—"Oh, we can't give time here in America to go into niceties and French whim-whams!" But the French mode of doing almost all practical things is based on that true philosophy and utilitarian good sense which characterize that seemingly thoughtless people. Nowhere is economy a more careful study, and their market is artistically arranged to this end. The rule is so to cut their meats that no portion designed to be cooked in a certain manner shall have wasteful appendages which that mode of cooking will spoil. The French soup-kettle stands ever ready to receive the bones, the thin fibrous flaps, the sinewy and gristly portions, which are so often included in our roasts or broilings, which fill our plates with unsightly debris, and finally make an amount of blank waste for which we pay our butcher the same price that we pay for what we have eaten.

The dead waste of our clumsy, coarse way of cutting meats is immense. For example, at the beginning of the present season, the part of a lamb denominated leg and loin, or hind-quarter, sold for thirty cents a pound. Now this includes, besides the thick, fleshy portions, a quantity of bone, sinew, and thin fibrous substance, constituting full one-third of the whole weight. If we put it into the oven entire, in the usual manner, we have the thin parts overdone, and the skinny and fibrous parts utterly dried up, by the application of the amount of heat necessary to cook the thick portion. Supposing the joint to weigh six pounds, at thirty cents, and that one-third of the weight is so treated as to become perfectly useless, we throw away sixty cents. Of a piece of beef at twenty-five cents a pound, fifty cents' worth is often lost in bone, fat, and burnt skin.

The fact is, this way of selling and cooking meat in large, gross portions is of English origin, and belongs to a country where all the customs of society spring from a class who have no particular occasion for economy. The practice of minute and delicate division comes from a nation which acknowledges the need of economy, and has made it a study. A quarter of lamb in this mode of division would be sold in three nicely prepared portions. The thick part would be sold by itself, for a neat, compact little roast; the rib-bones would be artistically separated, and all the edible matters scraped away would form those delicate dishes of lamb-chop, which, fried in bread-crumbs to a golden brown, are so ornamental and so palatable a side-dish; the trimmings which remain after this division would be destined to the soup-kettle or stew-pan. In a French market is a little portion for every purse, and the far-famed and delicately flavored soups and stews which have arisen out of French economy are a study worth a housekeeper's attention. Not one atom of food is wasted in the French modes of preparation; even tough animal cartilages and sinews, instead of appearing burned and blackened in company with the roast meat to which they happen to be related, are treated according to their own laws, and come out either in savory soups, or those fine, clear meat-jellies which form a garnish no less agreeable to the eye than palatable to the taste.

Whether this careful, economical, practical style of meat-cooking can ever to any great extent be introduced into our kitchens now is a question. Our butchers are against it; our servants are wedded to the old wholesale wasteful ways, which seem to them easier because they are accustomed to them. A cook who will keep and properly tend a soup-kettle which shall receive and utilize all that the coarse preparations of the butcher would require her to trim away, who understands the art of making the most of all these remains, is a treasure scarcely to be hoped for. If such things are to be done, it must be primarily through the educated brain of cultivated women who do not scorn to turn their culture and refinement upon domestic problems.

When meats have been properly divided, so that each portion can receive its own appropriate style of treatment, next comes the consideration of the modes of cooking. These may be divided into two great general classes: those where it is desired to keep the juices within the meat, as in baking, broiling, and frying,—and those whose object is to extract the juice and dissolve the fibre, as in the making of soups and stews. In the first class of operations, the process must be as rapid as may consist with the thorough cooking of all the particles. In this branch of cookery, doing quickly is doing well. The fire must be brisk, the attention, alert. The introduction of cooking-stoves offers to careless domestics facilities for gradually drying-up meats, and despoiling them of all flavor and nutriment,—facilities which appear to be very generally laid hold of. They have almost banished the genuine, old-fashioned roast-meat from our tables, and left in its stead dried meats with their most precious and nutritive juices evaporated. How few cooks, unassisted, are competent to the simple process of broiling a beefsteak or mutton-chop! how very generally one has to choose between these meats gradually dried away, or burned on the outside and raw within! Yet in England these articles never come on table done amiss; their perfect cooking is as absolute a certainty as the rising of the sun.