Under the pruning-knife. A story of southern life

Chapter I. George Dalrymple’s Marriage

I T is rather embarrassing to me to be called upon to give my testimony in this case, because, for one thing, I am too old to make a first claim for authorship ; and besides, I am an interested party, and so in law could not be called in as a witness. But I am only one among several speakers, and, as my journal has faithfully recorded every event, I cannot refuse to do my part in giving to the world a strange and tender story, the actors in which have, so many of them, stepped off this mortal stage.

Forty years ago ! How strange that it should be so long ! I was then twenty-five years of age. There ! I have let you into the secret about which all unmarried women are said to be, and are, perhaps, sensitive. Yes, however much they may brave it out, there is somewhere a twinge which asserts women’s nature when they tell their age. Well, forty years ago I laid away my youth with its lost love in one grave, and, planting some sweet flowers of memory to mark the spot, watered it with my tears and turned away, saying, as many another has done before and since, “ I will never know happiness again. I will endure life till my summons comes and I go to join my loved and lost beyond the floods of time.”

But we seldom guess aright about our future. Joy has come to my life many times since that day — not the wild, exuberant joy of early youth, but the calm happiness of the Christian, seeing the Father’s hand in the blessing bestowed and feeling the Father’s love in its denial, with the blessed consciousness of the Father’s eye and care upon every step of the pathway of life. It was but the first volume in the book of my experience which closed with this episode ; the second opens with the present story.

I once went with some friends to visit a great fruit-farm belonging to an old Scotchman. As we lingered under the beautiful apple trees, hanging heavy with fruit and bearing ample testimony to the skill and intelligence of the owner, our eyes were attracted by some gnarled and twisted specimens with their wormy trunks and their defective fruit strangely out -of place. We asked an explanation, and the owner’s answer contained a life-lesson which was a sweet comfort to the sore, tired heart I bore about with me.

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“ Well, leddias,” he said, “ I feel ashamed of myself to see those sad blots on my orchard, but I will soon remove them. Just look at these two trees side by side — this with its smooth, straight trunk, its loaded branches and its beautiful fruit, and that with its knotted bark, its worm-holes and its dwarfed and wretched fruit. Yet this last has had ten times as much labor expended upon it as that, and here is the explanation. Some years since, I bought this place with an orchard upon it, but so misused and neglected was it that most of the trees were fit only for firewood ; so I cut them down, with the exception of one here and there, the best of them, which I reserved till my new trees should be of bearing age. But for the most part it has been labor thrown away, for they have given me more trouble than they were worth. I have had to work round the roots and cut out the worms even to the hearts of the trees. I tried to straighten the trunks and to smooth the bark to make them more sightly. I do like things shipshape, and, first and last, what with pruning and digging for worms, half of each tree has been cut away. But they were too old to accomplish any good. Just see here and here and here !” and the impetuous old man plucked apple after apple from the branches above his head. “ Not a sound one amongst them. The worst of it is that the worms get at my young trees and give me still more trou-

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ble. I shall cut them all out another year, and shall depend on my young ones.

“Now look here,” said he, turning with pardonable pride to a beautiful specimen of his care and skill. “ I never saw a more unpromising twig than this was. I had to tie it to a stake in five or six places before I could make it grow perfectly straight. The worms from its neighbor, there, had a wonderful fancy for it, and I had to cut them out time and again ; but the trouble seems as nothing now, when I see its straight, smooth trunk, its vigorous branches and its beautiful shape. It can’t be hurt now, and, except an occasional gentle pruning, it requires next to no care at all. The fruit is perfect.”

This was my lesson. Are not Christians as trees in the orchard of God, our great Father, often misused and neglected till they are crooked and gnarled, deformed by worms at the heart, while the scars of past wounds disfigure and mar the beauty of their lives? They suffer severely from God’s pruningknife, which cuts deep to eradicate the evil. Their branches are one after another pruned away, and still the fruit borne is imperfect; and before the work is completed the measure of their lives is filled out and they must make room for others.

1 thank God the work in me was begun early in life ; and although I was but a crooked stick at best, and had to be bound with chafing thongs to the upright stake, yet I was conquered at last. Many trees have gone far beyond me in fruitbearing, yet God has helped me to bring some fruit into his garner ; and now, though my trunk is bowed with age, I can still bring forth fruit to his glory. And when my time and my work here are done, I shall be transplanted to bloom in perpetual youth and vigor in the garden of my Lord.

It was one of these thongs which was chafing my spirit when I received the following letter from Judge Lyle Wallace, an old friend of my father and well known in his State and beyond it as one of Virginia’s most gifted and revered sons :

“Richmond, March 15, 1844.

“ My dear Ellen : You have been much in my thoughts of late, particularly since your last sad affliction, and I only wish it were in my power to help and to comfort you. Perhaps it is ; at any rate, the hope impels me to write to you. I think, my dear — excuse the freedom of an old man in calling you so — that there is nothing which so binds up heart-wounds as occupation, and so I have occupation to propose to you as a panacea.

“ But, while it is my earnest wish that you may see fit to accept my proposition and that it may prove congenial, I am obliged to confess some selfishness mingled with the desire for your good, as my proposal is that you will come to the assist-

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ance of Mrs. Wallace and myself in the upbringing of the children of George Dalrymple. You knew George, did you not ? He was often at your father’s house when you were a child. At any rate, you know — as does all the world besides — the story of his sad misalliance.

“ That marriage eventuated even more sadly than our worst fears could have anticipated. His father aged under it, and as a last hope advised George to accede to his wife’s wishes and take her back to Paris, thinking that with this question — which had been productive of such painful discussion between them — once settled he might gain that control over her fickle, vain nature which was the only hope of any domestic happiness for them. So it was agreed upon ; the plan was carried into effect, and Mrs. Dalrymple — I can hardly give her the honored title — readily consented to leave behind her two infant daughters, the younger, Linda, being not quite a year old and Eva less than three.

“ The tender affections of the unfortunate young father, as a solace for other disappointments, had centred upon his little daughters; so that it was almost like rending soul and body apart to separate from them. But, alas ! he too well knew that his wife would not give to them that care their tender age demanded and w r as in no respect fitted to train their developing minds and characters; so with a sad heart he departed, and my poor friend, his father, brought the children to my wife, who gave them the place in her heart and home which has always been held by our children and grandchildren.

“ The history of the next few years was full to the brim of disaster to the Dalrymples. George was absent five years, and, although he wrote constantly, his sensitive nature, almost womanly in its refinement and shrinking delicacy, seldom touched upon the subject of his grief ; but it was not hard to trace its ravages in the melancholy strain of his letters, though he often made an effort to hide it by assuming a playful tone to the children, sending messages from mamma which we elders knew emanated from himself alone.

“At the end of his five years of absence George suddenly made his appearance at his father’s house alone — a man so broken that it made the heart sick to see him, and with the story of his loneliness so plainly written in his face that none asked him to give speech to it. I heard from his father, in whom alone he confided, that the wretched woman left him to escape his reasonable remonstrances against the dissipated life she persisted in leading and his earnest entreaties that she would return with him to their children. George never held up his head again, and, in despite of the strong tie his children held upon his life, in less than a year after his return he sank under the disease — consumption — which had laid his young mother in an early grave.

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“ During this time he never heard one word from his wife, and from that day to this no certain tidings have reached us, except that in answer to researches made by agents of my friend we heard of the sad death in a burning theatre in Paris of a nameless young woman who in some particulars answered the description of George Dalrymple’s wife. My dear old friend John did not long survive his son, and, dying, bequeathed his little granddaughters to my care ; and they have ever since been objects of our most tender solicitude. Their peculiar disposition makes a stronger claim upon the generous heart of Mrs. Wallace than even her own offspring, for whom nature secures all nature’s rights.

“ This is now a critical period in the lives of the little girls, and, unwilling to trust such precious charges out of our sight, we are anxious to secure for them the services of one who will complete and fill out our plans for them. We want not only a governess, but a friend. Mrs. Wallace is growing old, and finds it difficult to give to the children that care which she used to give, and which they require now. My dear friend, will you come to our help in the matter? It will be a work of great interest,.* I feel sure, and I think the children will reward your care.

“ Now for business arrangements : . . .

“ Yours faithfully,

“Lyle Wallace.”

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For the benefit of my readers I will here fill out Judge Wallace’s narration.

The friendship of Lyle Wallace with John Dalrymple was lifelong, a thing inherited. Their fathers — the one from New York, and the other from Virginia — were friends. John was on a visit to this friend of his father when an event occurred which cemented the alfection of the two boys. They were out swimming, and Lyle, sinking from some accident, was saved by his friend from drowning. From that time, like David and Jonathan, they were united closely as brothers. John made his home in Virginia near his friend, and married in that State, Wallace soon after following his example. But from now their lives ran diverse. Mrs. Dalrymple died within the first year of her marriage, leaving one son, who was named George Wallace. Although still in his early youth, the bereaved husband never married a second time, but devoted his life to his son. There must have been something staunch and enduring in the nature of this man, so tenaciously did he hold fast to the affections of his youth. This nature he bestowed upon his son, to whom he strove with strength and gentleness to supply the place of the mother he had so early lost.

As the boy grew into manhood the father seemed to renew his youth, sharing his studies and pleasures ; he seemed cheated out of his maturity by his

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son’s joyous nature. After George’s college course was concluded his father planned for him a tour to Europe, that in the sober age of the Old World he might supplement the youth of the New. They parted, father and son, regrets for the separation mingled with bright anticipations of their reunion, when both would profit by the gains of the one.

Alas ! who could have predicted the fatality of the step ? One year passed away charmingly, profitably, to the youth, drinking inspiration from historical founts, poetical aspirations rising as he followed the bard up the blue Rhine, lingered beside the beautiful Lac Leman, traced the course of the great military leader over the St. Gothard pass, and at last arrested his footsteps in fascinating Paris, where he was content to rest a while.

Returning late one evening to his hotel, as he passed into the main entrance his attention was arrested by cries of anguish, and, impulsively following the sound, he entered a chamber where he found a golden-haired childish figure thrown upon the body of a man who lay upon his bed with a ghastly wound in the temple — dead. Paris was too busy to linger long over such a scene ; one or two came and looked upon it, and went away. Not so the young American ; on inquiry he found that that dead man was Monsieur Alante, an adventurer well known in the gambling-salons of Paris, where he had gained a precarious living for himself and his young daughter. How he had met his tragical end none knew ; he had been found dead, and had been brought home.

Perhaps George Dalrymple would have been less quixotic had it not been for the despair of the beautiful daughter, a girl of sixteen. He strove to soothe her grief, and buried her father ; then, having done so much, he found there was literally no one to do anything else. When he inquired for her relatives and friends she passionately declared herself alone — utterly alone — and looked so beautiful in her helpless grief that George fell desperately in love with her and, blindly following the impulse of his mad passion, married her, thinking, with the confidence of youth, that so much loveliness of person must have a like loveliness of mind and heart.

So the news came, with the half-told story that George was married — yes, married to a girl about whom he had nothing to tell except that she was beautiful as an houri and that he loved her. It was a terrible blow to his father, but he obeyed the claims of the inevitable and forbore to give expression to his disappointment and fears when such expression could do no good. He even sent words of affectionate welcome to the young wife and bade George bring her home, and then set to work to prepare his home for the young mistress. He even tried to cover his apprehensions of evil by drawing mental pictures of the future happiness of 2

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his home, in which pictures the new daughter held a conspicuous place.

The ardor of the youthful lover had not colored too brightly the beauty of Matilde. I perfectly remember her appearance. She was not the style we associate with nativity in France ; I have often thought that her mother, at least, must have been of Saxon blood. She was as fair and golden as a sunbeam. Looking upon the exquisite exterior, one almost pardoned the folly of the enamored lover. By her own account she had passed a wandering life at German watering-places in summer and at Paris in winter, sometimes at school for a little while, but generally mistress of her own time and movements. Petted and caressed for her dangerous gift of beauty, she grew up a creature undisciplined and wild as a Bohemian, following each impulse as it came. If it had not been for the meeting between herself and the young Virginian, her lot might have been a very different one.

George was not long in discovering that the beautiful child he had married was not all his fancy had painted her. Her want of education shocked him, her vanity made him tremble, but he was still under the spell of love, and rejoiced that she was so young, pitied her for the misfortunes of her life and planned to educate and train her into all he could wish — a perfection suited to her exquisite beauty. Alas for the disappointment which awaits any such schemes !

A husband is seldom a good educator for a wife, and in this case there was but little underneath the fair exterior to work upon.

Mrs. Dairy mple had imbibed a passion for the only phase of life she had ever known; she was not willing to exchange the flattery of the world in general for the more sensible devotion of her husband. He wearied her by his admonitions; she did not marry to learn lessons. The stateliness of the society she met in Richmond was inexpressibly tedious ; she was continually committing some act which outraged polite usage and mortified her husband and his father, until she became clamorous to return to Paris that she might enjoy the only freedom she at all appreciated, that she might get rid of the trammels which bound her to a life she hated. The husband still hoped that her woman’s nature would develop with her motherhood. Vain hope ! The birth of her two daughters in the first two years of her marriage served only to show how utterly nature and nurture had combined to constitute a woman wanting in every element necessary to fill the sacred position of wife and mother. The children wearied her ; she was too young to settle down to a nursery. In short, it was an irreparable blunder, which worked the dire devastation of the Dalrymples, father and son, and left the innocent little ones without the care which nature provides for the opening life of chilhood.

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This brings me to the point taken up in Judge Wallace’s letter. It did not take long to decide upon accepting the offer made me. I wanted an object in life — to feel that I had still a place in the great human family and could be of use to my kind, making others happy if I could never be so myself. My woman’s heart lightened at the prospect of having little children about me ; the charge of training their dawning beings had a charm to me. The offer came, too, at a time when it was necessary for me to provide a support for myself. This did so amply, but still all this, I thought, was but a device to fill out the measure of my days. God would let me help others; for me happiness was over. We often find, like Solomon, that when we ask our heavenly Father for gifts which will enable us to do his will to the best advantage, he adds to us blessings that we had not dared to include in our supplications.

Chapter II. Wo Ob Lawn

TT was the habit of Judge Wallace to spend his winters in Richmond in the performance of the duties of his profession, but as soon as the spring suns brought with them their enervating results the hospitable doors of Woodlawn — his mountain-home — flew wide open to admit not only his own family and descendants, but many friends.

Woodlawn was a hereditary possession — one of those homes now so rare in Virginia — known everywhere for its liberal-hearted hospitality. Virginians are not less generous and warm-hearted now than were their forefathers, but, alas ! we have fallen upon evil days where thrift and toil are absolute necessities, when the crust is hard to earn and the dainty bit which dogs were wont to pick up under their master’s table must perforce be dispensed with. But in those halcyon days of the old State it was different, and, whilst we must admire the courage which has faced misfortune without flinching, yet, as the captive Israelites hung their harps on the willows and wept as they remembered

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Zion, so do we drop a tear over the beautiful past — a past in which the old mother played so graceful a part, and with such grand courtesy, so winning, so dignified, obeyed the gospel injunction, “Use hospitality without grudging, for God loveth a cheerful giver.”

So it was to Woodlawn I went when I had accepted the offer tendered me by Judge Wallace. I shall never forget the manner of my arrival and my welcome. I wish I could lend you the ears and the eyes of my memory that you might see and hear as 1 still seem to do what transpired that sweet summer afternoon so many years ago. I shut my eyes upon the present and recall the past.

It was before the days when railroads had latticed the face of Nature and locomotion was not by any means what it now is. I had been riding all day, and was hot, tired and dusty. The driver had just pointed out a clump of trees with the white walls of a house glittering through them as the end of my wanderings, when my ears were attracted by the music of children’s voices, and, looking out, my eyes took in this picture : Just at the entrance of an avenue of elm trees, standing in the glorious golden sunset, was a charming group of children of various sizes and ages, from the bright boy of seventeen to the fair-haired baby in its nurse’s arms. They were clustering about the stately figure of a venerable man whose uncovered head allowed the

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breeze to play at hide-and-seek with his long white locks. A sunbeam rested upon him, crowning him as with a halo far more radiant than any of earth’s coronets, though set with earth’s brightest jewels. The children raised to him their smiling faces, bright with youth, health and happiness. There was a pause in the babel of voices and laughter as the old gentleman made a funnel of his two hands and uttered through the aperture this sentence, the first part of which, in spite of an immense display of effort, was spoken in a very low tone, and the last two words alone shouted with the full volume of his voice :

“ If these boys don’t learn their lessons, must I whip them?”

Breathlessly the audience listens, with bent heads and sparkling eyes, and away off in the recesses of the woods and hills comes a stern voice repeating three times and growing fainter with each repetition :

“ Whip them ! whip them ! whip th — ”

“ If these girls don’t learn their lessons, must I whip them ?” is the next question propounded, and the same mysterious voice reiterates with no loss of determination,

“ Whip them ! whip them ! whip th — ”

Then, in obedience to that great disciplinarian Mr. Echo, who has ordered their chastisement, the old gentleman drops his hands and dashes into the midst of the screaming, laughing throng, and, seiz-

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ing one after another, then and there inflicts summary chastisement, while the mysterious voice sends back weird, mocking laughter and shouts which seem carried from one point to another till the woods and hills re-echo with gleeful sounds.

This group, containing many of the dramatis persona '■ of my story, is standing, as I before said, at the entrance of an avenue of elm trees whose branches, meeting, form an archway over the carriage-road. This avenue comes to an abrupt termination at a great gate with enormous side-posts giving an idea of solidity and firmness. The gate opens very wide and seems to send a hospitable invitation to outsiders to come in and be blessed. Within the enclosure the carriage-road divides, and the two branches, running in opposite directions through an apple-orchard, form a wide circle, meeting at the great entrance of an old-fashioned but very beautiful mansion whose stuccoed walls glitter in the evening sun like a mountain of new-fallen snow.

Extending from the front of the house to the gate and dividing the orchard in two is a smooth-shaven lawn whose green surface is broken on either side by broad flower-borders in which no flower is allowed except the rose, but where an infinite variety of this prolific family finds its place. In the full glory of their rich bloom, these roses scatter their many-hued leaves in lavish profusion and load the air with their delicious perfume. With the exception of this avenue of roses and a few climbers on arbor and trellis, there are no flowers at the front of the house, but the grass is most luxuriant. Passing around the house to the west, one is entranced by the river, at the distance of some two hundred yards. The ground slopes upward, culminating in a mound which forms the centre of this most beautiful garden, which must cover nearly three acres. It is enclosed by a hedge of purple lilacs, Mrs. Wallace’s especial pride, and it is hard to imagine anything more beautiful than this rich green-and-purple wall shutting in a garden which might have been modeled after the garden of Eden.

But all this time have I been garrulously wandering on over familiar scenes about this beautiful old Virginia home, and I have left the group of children at the entrance to the avenue, while my carriage lingers near.

As Judge Wallace darted in and out among the group of children he caught sight of the carriage with my head out of the window ; instantly coming forward, he gave me a hearty welcome, excusing himself by saying laughingly,

“Ah, Ellen — for I must drop formalities with your father’s child — you find the old man playing the boy. Don’t accuse me of second childhood, but lay it all to the rejuvenating effects of the mountain-air.” Then, turning to the children, he said, “ Make your best bows to Miss Ellen Maxwell,

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young folks, and run home. She is too tired to be made known in broken doses to such a multitude ; she may take her time at that. Scamper home, you rogues ! See who will get there first and tell the news.”

Off flew the children, filling the air with their merry music, while the judge, taking a seat beside me, questioned, as we rode, of my journey with a kind courtesy which set me quite at ease with him.

The children had already announced my arrival, and the portico was filled with a formidable group.

“ Welcome home, my dear,” said the judge as he helped me from the carriage, while a stout lady with a basket on her arm came forward with a charmingly welcoming face and was introduced as “ My wife.” She kissed my cheek and repeated “ Welcome home, my dear.” Then one after another was introduced ; but I grew bewildered — as you would do, my reader — with the number of introductions, all kindly gracious people, but people who have no place in my story.

“And this is Eva,” said the judge, leading forward a blushing little rosebud of a girl who with an innocent confidingness which won me at once put up her mouth for a kiss. She was wonderfully like that vision of loveliness which had lured George Dalrvmple to ruin, but the fact brought no prejudice to my spirit ; I was only charmed by the idea that I was to train the mind and the heart of the

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beautiful child, to make her all that under happier auspices her unfortunate mother might have been.

“ Where is my little Lin?” said the judge, turning about in the group. “ She did not go out to call the echo, and promised to be the first to welcome Miss Maxwell. Where is the child?”

No one knew, but Mrs. Wallace suggested with a laugh,

“ Buried in a book somewhere.”

“ Yes,” said the judge ; “ and when that is the case, you might burn the house down and singe off the end of her nose without much disturbing her.”