Dream life : a fable of the seasons

Front matter

V

DREAM LIFE: 3. Jable

OF THE SEASONS.

I

First Ambition, .

.

IV.

First Look at the

V.

A Broken Houie,

VI.

Family Confidence,

.

. 170

VII.

.

VIII.

.

DREAMS OF MANHOOD.

Autumn, ....

I. Pride of Manliness, .

199 204

Contents

vii

PAGE

Man of the World, .

III. Boy Sentiment

X'XT'EEKS, and even years of your boyhood roll on, T T in the which your dreams are growing wider and grander, — even as the Spring, which I have made the type of the boy-age, is stretching its foliage farther and farther, and dropping longer and heavier shadows on the land.

Nelly, that sweet sister, has grown into your heart strangely ; and you think that all they write in their books about love, cannot equal your fondness for httle Nelly. She is pretty, they say ; but what do you care for her prettiness ? She is so good, so kind — so watchful of all your wants, so willing to yield to your haughty claims !

]>ut, alas, it is only when this sisterly love is lost

Boy Sen t i m k n t . 57

forever, — only wlioii the inexoi-able world separates a family and tosses it upon tbe waves of fate to widelying distances — perhaps to graves ! — that a man feels, what a boy can never knuw, — the disinterested and cibiding affection of a sister.

All this, that I have set down, comes back to you long afterward, when you recal with tears of regret, your reproachful words, or some swift outbreak of passion.

Little Madge is a friend of Nelly's — a mischievous, bhie-eyed hoyden. They tease you about Madge. You do not of course care one straw for her, but yet it is rather pleasant to be teased thus. Nelly never does this ; oh no, not she. I do not know but in the age of childhood, the sister is jealous of the affections of a brother, and would keep his heart wholly at home, until suddenly, and strangely, she finds her own — wandering.

But after all, Madge is pretty ; and there is something taking in her name. Old people, and very precise people, call her Margaret Boyne. But you do not : it is only plain Madge ; — it sounds like her — very rapid and mischievous. It would be the most absurd thing in the world for you to hke her, for she teases you in innumerable ways : she laughs at your big shoes ; (such a sweet little foot as she has !) and she pins strips of paper on your coat collar ; and time and again she

58 D U E A M - L I F E .

lias worn off your hat in triumpli, very well knowing that yon, such a quiet body, and so much afraid of her, will never venture upon any hberties with her gipsy bonnet.

You sometimes wish, in your vexation, as you sec her running, that she would fall and hurt herself badly ; but the next moment, it seems a very wicked wish, and you renounce it. Once, she did come very near it. You were all playing together by the big swing — (how plainly it swings in your memory now!) — Madge had the seat, and you were famous for running under with a long push, which Madge liked bettor than anything else : well, you have half run over the ground, when crash comes the swing, and poor Madge with it ! You fairly scream as you catch her up. But she is not hurt — only a cry of fright, and a little sprain of that fairy ancle ; and as she brushes away the tears, and those flaxen curls, and breaks into a merry laugh, — half at your woe-worn face, and half in vexation at herself ; and leans her hand (such a hand !) upon your shoulder, to limp away into the shade, you dream — your first dream of love.

But it is only a dream, not at all acknowledged by you : she is three or four years your junior, — too young altogether. It is very absurd to talk about it. There is nothing to be said of Madge — only — Madge ! The name does it.

Boy Sentiment. 59

It is rather a pretty name to write. You are fond of making capital M's ; and sometimes you follow it with a capital A. Then you practise a little upon a D, and perhaps back it up with a G. Of course it is the merest accident that these letters come together. It seems funny to you — very. And as a proof that they are made at random, you make a T or an R before them, and some other quite irrelevant letters after it.

Finally, as a sort of security against all suspicion, you cross it out — cross it a great many ways ; — even holding it up to the light, to see that there should be no air of intention about it.

You need have no fear, Clarence, that your

hieroglyphics will be studied so closely. Accidental as they are, you are very much more interested in them than any one else !

It is a common fallacy of this dream in most

stages of life, that a vast number of persons employ their time chiefly in spying out its operations.

Yet Madge cares nothing about you, that you know of. Perhaps it is the very reason, though you do not suspect it then, why you care so much for her. At any rate, she is a friend of Nelly's ; and it is your duty not to dislike her. Nelly too, sweet Nelly, gets an inkling of matters ; for sisters ai-e very shrewd in suspicions of this sort — shrewder than bi'others or fathers ; and Hke the good kind girl that she is, she wishes to humor even your weakness.

Madge drops in to tea quite often : Nelly has something in particular to show her, two or three times a week. Good Nelly, — perhaps she is making your troubles all the greater ! You gather large bunches of grapes for Madge — because she is a friend of Nelly's — which she doesn't want at all, and very pretty bouquets, which she either drops, or pulls to pieces.

In the presence of your father one day, you drop some hint about Madge, in a very careless way — a way shrewdly calculated to lay all suspicion ; — at which your father laughs. This is odd : it makes you wonder if your father was ever in love himself.

You rather think that he has been.

Madge's father is dead and her mother is poor ; and you sometimes dream, how — whatever your father may think or feel — you will some day make a large fortune, in some very easy way, and build a snug cottage, and have one horse for your carriage, and one for your wife, (not Madge, of course — that is absurd) and a turtle shell cat for your wife's mother, and a pretty gate to the front yard, and plenty of shrubbery, and how your wife will come dancing down the path to meet you, — as the Wife does in Mr, Irving's Sketch Book, — and how she will have a harp inside, and will wear white dresses, with a blue sash.

Boy Sentiment. 61

Poor Clarence, it never once occurs to you, that

even Madge may grow fat, and wear check aprons, and snuflfy -brown dresses of woollen stuff, and twist her hair in yellow papers 1 Oh no, boyhood has no such dreams as that !

I shall leave you here in the middle of your first foray into the world of sentiment, with those wicked blue eyes chasing rainbows over your heart, and those little feet walking every day into your affections. I shall leave you before the affair has ripened into any overtures, and while there is only a sixpence split in halves, and tied about your neck, and Maggie's neck, to bind your destinies together.

If I even hinted at any probabihty of your marrying her, or of your not marrpng her, you would be very hkely to dispute me. One knows his own feelings, or thinks he does, so much better than any one can tell him !

IV. A Friend made and Friend Lost

TO visit, is a great thing in the boy calendar : — not to visit this or that neighbor, — to drink tea, or eat strawberries, or play at draughts ; — but, to go away on a visit in a coach, with a trunk, and a great-coat, and an umbrella : — this is large !

It makes no difference, that they wish to be rid of your noise, now that Charlie is sick of a fever : — the reason is not at all in the way of your pride of visiting. You are to have a long ride in a coach, and eat a dinner at a tavern, and to see a new town almost as large as the one you live in, and you are to make new acquaintances. In short, you are to see the world : — a very proud thing it is, to see the world !

As you journey on, after bidding your friends adieu, and as you see fences and houses to whicli you have not been used, you think them very odd indeed : but it occurs to you, that the geographies speak of \'ery various national characteristics, and you are greatly gratified with this opportunity of verifying your study. You see new crops too, perhaps a broad-leaved tobacco field, which reminds you pleasantly of the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics, spoken of by Peter Parley, and others.

As for the houses and barns in the new town, they quite startle you with their strangeness : you observe that some of the latter instead of having one stable door, have five or six, a fact which puzzles you very much indeed. You observe farther, that the houses many of them have balustrades upon the top, which seems to you a very wonderful adaptation to the wants of boys, who wish to fly kites, or to play upon the roof. You notice with special favor, one very low roof which you might chmb upon by a mere plank, and you think the boys, whose father lives in that house, are very fortunate boys.

Your old aunt, whom you visit, you think wears a very queer cap, being altogether different from that of the old nurse, or of Mrs. Boyne, — Madge's mother. As for the house she Hves in, it is quite wonderful. There are such an immense number of closets, and closets within closets, reminding you of the mysteries of Rinaldo Rinaklini. Beside which, there are immensely curious bits of old furniture — so black and heavy, and with such curious carving ! — and you think of the old wainscot in the Children of the Abbey. You think you will never tire of rarabhng about in its odd corners, and of what glorious stories you will have to tell of it, when you go back to Nelly, and Charlie.

As for acquaintances, you fall in the very first day with a tall boy next door, called Nat. which seems an extraordinary name. Besides, he has travelled ; and as he sits with you on the summer nights under the hnden trees, he tells you gorgeous stories of the things he has seen. He has made the voyage to London ; and he talks about the ship (a real ship) and starboard and larboard, and the spanker, in a way quite surprising ; and he takes the stern oar, in the little skiff when you row off in the cove abreast of the town, in a most seaman-like way.

He bewilders you too, with his talk about the great bridges of London — London bridge specially, where they sell kids for a penny ; which story your new acquaintance, unfortunately, does not confirm. You have read of these bridges, and seen pictures of them in the Wonders of the World ; but then Nat. has seen them with his own eyes : he has literally walked over London Bridge, on his own feet ! You look at his very shoes in wonderment, and are sui-prised you do not find some startling difference between those shoes, and your shoes. But there is none — only yours are a trifle stouter in the welt. You think Nat. one of the fortunate boys of this world — born, as your old nurse used to say — with a gold spoon in his mouth.

Beside Nat, there is a girl lives over the opposite side of the way, named Jenny, with an eye as black as a coal ; and a half a year older than you ; but about your height ; — whom you fancy amazingly.

She has any quantity of toys, that she lets you play with, as if they were your own. And she has an odd, old uncle, who sometimes makes you stand up together, and then marries you after his fashion, — much to the amusement of a grown up house-maid, whenever she gets a peep at the performance. And it makes you somewhat proud to hear her called your wife ; and you wonder to yourself, dreamily, if it won't be true some day or other.

Fie, Clarence, where is your spht sixpence,

and your blue ribbon !

Jenny is romantic, and talks of Thaddeus of Warsaw in a very touching manner, and promises to lend you the book. She folds billets in a lover's fashion, and practises love-knots upon her bonnet strings. She looks out of the corners of her eyes very often, and sighs. She is frequently by herself, and pulls flowers to pieces.

She has great pity for middle-aged bachelors, and thinks them all disappointed men.

After a time she writes notes to you, begging you would answer them at the earUest possible moment, and signs herself — ' your attached Jenny.' She takes the marriage farce of her uncle in a cold way — as trifling with a very serious subject, and looks tenderly at you. She is very much shocked when her uncle offers to kiss her ; and when he proposes it to you, she is equally indignant, but — with a great change of color.

Nat. says one day, in a confidential conversation, that it won't dqj^to marry a woman six months older than yourself ; and this coming from Nat. who has been to London, rather staggers you. You sometimes think that you would like to marry Madge and Jenny both, if the thing were possible ; for Nat. says they sometimes do so the other side of the ocean, though he has never seen it himself.

Ah, Clarence, you will have no such weakness

as you grow older : you will find that Providence has charitably, so tempered our affections, that every man of only ordinary nerve will be amply satisfied with a single wife !

All this time, — for you are making your visit a very long one, so that autumn has come, and the nights are gi'owing cool, and Jenny and yourself are transferring your little coquetries to the chimney corner; — poor

A Friend made and Friend Losx.Ci

Charlie lies sick, at home. Boyhood, thank Heaven^ does not suffer severely from sympathy when the object is remote. And those letters from the mother, tellino; you that CharHe cannot play, — cannot talk even as he used to do ; and that perhaps his ' Heavenly Father will take him away, to be with him in the better world,' disturb you for a time only. Sometimes, however, they come back to your thought on a wakeful night, and you dream about his suffering, and tliink — why it is not you, but Charhe, who is sick? The thought puzzles you ; and well it may, for in it lies the whole mystery of our fate.

Those letters grow more and more discouraging, and the kind admonitions of your mother grow more earnest, as if (though the thought does not come to you until yeai-s afterward) she was preparing hei-self to fasten upon you, that surplus of affection, which she fears may soon be withdrawn forever from the sick child.

It is on a frosty, bleak evening, when you are playing with Nat. that the letter reaches you which says Charlie is growing woi-se, and that you must come to your home. It makes a dreamy night for you — fancying how Charhe will look, and if sickness has altered him much, and if he will not be well by Christmas. From this, you fall away in your reverie, to the odd old house, and its secret cupboards, and your aunt's queer caps : then come up those black eyes of ' your attached Jenny,' and you think it a pity that she is six months older than you ; and again — as you recal one of her sighs — ^you think — that six months are not much after all !

You bid her good-bye, with a little sentiment swelling in your throat, and are mortally afraid Nat. will see your lip tremble. Of course you promise to write, and squeeze her hand with an honesty, you do not think of doubting — for weeks.

It is a dull, cold ride, that day, foi- you. The winds sweep over the withered corn-lields, with a harsh, chilly whistle ; and the surfaces of the little pools by the road-side are tossed up into cold blue wrinkles of water. Here and there a flock of quail, with their feathers ruffled in the autumn gusts, tread through the hard, dry stubble of an oat-field ; or startled by the snap of the driver's whip, they stare a moment at the coach, then whir away down the cold current of the wind. The blue jays scream from the road-side oaks, and the last of the blue and purple asters shiver along the wall. And as the sun sinks, reddening all the western clouds, to the color of the frosted maples, — hght lines of the Aurora gush up from the northern hills, and trail their sphntered fingers far over the autumn sky.

It is quite dark when you reach home, but you see the bright reflection of a fire within, and presently at the open door, Nelly clapping her hands for welcome. But there are sad foces when you enter. Your mother folds you to her heai't ; but at your first noisy out-burst of joy, puts her finger on her hp, and whispers poor Charlie's name. The Doctor you see too, slipping softly out of the bed-room door with glasses in his hand ; and — joii hardly know how — your spirits grow sad, and your heart gravitates to the heavy air of all about you.

You cannot see Charhe, Nelly says ; — and you cannot in the quiet parlor, tell Nelly a single one of the many things, which you had hoped to tell her. She says — ' Charhe has grown so thin and so pale, you would never know him.' You listen to her, but you cannot talk : she asks you what you have seen, and you begin, for a moment joyously ; but when they open the door of the sick room, and you hear a faint sigh, you cannot go on. You sit still, with your hand in Nelly's, and look thoughtfully into the blaze.

You drop to sleep after that day's fatigue, with singular and perplexed fancies haunting you ; and when you wake up with a shudder in the middle of the night, you have a fancy that Charhe is really dead : you dream of seeing him pale and thin, as Nelly described him, and with the starched grave clothes on him. You toss over in your bed, and grow hot and feverish. You cannot sleep ; and you get up stealthily,

70 DreAxM-Life.

and creep down stairs ; a light is burning in the hall : the bed-room door stands half open, and you listen — fancjnng you hear a whisper. You steal on through the hall, and edge around the side of the door. A little lamp is flickering on the hearth, and the gaunt shadow of the bedstead hes dark upon the ceihng. Your mother is in her chair, with her head upon her hand — though it is long after midnight. The Doctor is standing with his back toward you, and with Charlie's httle wrist in his fingers ; and you hear hard breathing, and now and then, a low sigh from your mother's chair.

An occasional gleam of fire-light makes the gaunt shadows stagger on the wall, like something spectral. You look wildly at them, and at the bed where your own bi'other — your laughing, gay-hearted brother, is lying. You long to see him, and sidle up softly a step or two : but your mother's ear has caught the sound, and she beckons you to her, and folds you again in her embrace. You whisper to her what you wish. She rises, and takes you by the hand, to lead you to the bedside.

The Doctor looks very solemnly, as we approach. He takes out his watch. He is not counting Charhe's pulse, for he has dropped his hand ; and it lies carelessly, but oh, how thin ! over the edge of the bed.

He shakes his head mournfully at your mother ; and she springs forward, dropping j^onr hand, and lays her fingers upon the forehead of the boy, and passes her hand over his mouth.

" Is he asleep, Doctor ?" she says, in a tone you do not know.

" Be calm, madam." The Doctor is very calm.

" I am calm," says your mother ; but you do not think it, for you see her tremble very plainly.

" Dear madam, he will never waken in this world !"

There is no cry, — only a bowing down of your mother's head upon the body of poor, dead Charlie ! — and only when you see her form shake and quiver vnth the deep, smothered sobs, your crying bursts forth loud and strong.

The Doctor lifts you in his arms, that yen may see — that pale head, — those blue eyes all sunken, — that flaxen hair gone, — those white hps pinched and hard !

Never, never, will the boy forget his first terrible

sight of Death !

In your silent chamber, after the storm of sobs has wearied you, the boy-dreams are strange and earnest. They take hold on that awful Visitant, — that strange slipping away from life, of which we know so little, and yet know, alas, so much ! Charlie that was your brother, is now only a name : perhaps he is an angel : perhaps (for the old nurse has said it, when he was ugly — and now, you hate her for it) he is with Satan.

But you are sure this cannot be : you are sure that God who made him suffer, would not now quicken, and mul tidily his suffering. It agrees with your rehgion to think so ; and just now, you want your religion to help you all it can.

You toss in your bed, thinking over and over of that

strange thing Death : — and that perhaps it may

overtake you, before you are a man ; and you sob out those prayers (you scarce know why) which ask God to keep life in you. You think the involuntary fear that makes your little prayer full of sobs, is a holy feeling : — and so it is a holy feeling — the same feeling which makes a stricken child, yearn for the embrace, and the protection of a Parent. But you will find there are those canting ones, trying to persuade you at a later day, that it is a niere animal fear, and not to be cherished.

You feel an access of goodness growing out of your boyish grief : you feel right-minded : it seems as if your little bi'other in going to Heaven, had opened a pathway thither, down which, goodness comes streaming over your soul.

You think how good a life you will lead ; and you map out great purposes, spreading themselves over the school- weeks of your remaining boyhood ; and you love your friends, or seem to, far more dearly than you ever loved them before ; and you forgive the boy who provoked you to that sad fall from the oaks, and you forgive him all his wearisome teasings. But you cannot forgive yourself for some harsh words that you have once spoken to Charlie : still less can you forgive yourself for having once struck him, in passion,

with your fist. You cannot forget his sobs then :

if he were only alive one little instant, to let you say, — " Charlie, will you forgive me ?"

Youi'self, you cannot forgive ; and sobbing over it, and murmuring " Dear — dear Charhe !" — you drop into a troubled sleep.

V. Boy Religion

IS any weak soul frightened, that I should write of the Rehgion of the boy ? How indeed could I cover the field of his moral, or intellectual growth, if I left unnoticed those dreams of futurity and of goodness, which come sometimes to his quieter moments, and oftener, to his hours of vexation and trouble ? It would be as wise to describe the season of Spring, with no note of the silent influences of that burning Daygod, which is melting day by day the shattered ice-drifts of Winter ; — which is filling every bud with succulence, and painting one flower with crimson, and another with white.

I know there is a feeling — by much too general as it seems to me, — that the subject may not be approached.

Boy Religion. 76

except through the dicta of certain ecclesiastic bodies ; — and that the language which touches it, must not be that every-day language which mirrors the vitality of our thought, — but should have some twist of that theologic mannerism, which is as cold to the boy, as to the busy man of the world.

I know very well that a great many good souls will call levity, what I call honesty; and will abjure that fjimiliar handling of the boy's lien upon Eternity, w^hich my stoiy will show. But I shall feel sure that in keeping true to Nature with word and with thought, I shall in no way otiend against those Highest truths, to which all truthfulness is kindred.

You have Christian teachers, who speak always I'everently of the Bible : you grow up in the hearing of daily prayers : nay, you are perhaps taught to say them.

Sometimes they have a meaning, and sometimes they have none. They have a meaning, when your heart is troubled, — when a grief or a wrong weighs upon you : then, the keeping of the Father, which you implore, seems to come from the bottom of your soul ; and your eye suffuses with such tears of feeling, as you count holy, and as you love to cherish in your memory.

But, they have no meaning, when some trifling vexation angers you, and a distaste for all about you, breeds a distaste for all above you. In the long hours of toilsome days, little thought comes over you of the morning prayer; and only when evening deepens its shadows, and your boyish vexations fatigue you to thoughtfulness, do you dream of that coming, and endless night, to which, — they tell you, — prayers soften the way.

Sometimes upon a Summer Sunday, when you are ^^akeful upon your seat in church, with some strongwoi'ded preacher, who says things that half fright you, it occurs to you to consider how much goodness you are made of ; and whether there be enough of it after all, to carry you safely away from the clutch of Evil ? And straightway }'ou reckon up those friendships where your heai't lies : you know you are a true and honest friend to Frank ; and you love your mother, and your father : as for Nelly, Heaven knows, you could not contrive a way to love her better than you do.

You dare not take much credit to yourself for the love of httle Madge : — partly because you have sometimes caught yourself trying — not to love her : and partly because the black-eyed Jenny comes in tho way. Yet you can find no command in the Gate chism, to love one girl to the exclusion of all other girls. It is somewhat doubtful if you ever do find it But, as foi" loving some half dozen you could name whose images drift through your thought, in dirty salmon-colored frocks, and slovenly shoes, it is quite

]*> O Y R E LI CtI O N . 77

impossible ; and suddenly this thought, coupled with a hngering remembrance of the pea-gi-een pantaloons, utterly breaks down your hopes.

Yet, you muse again, — there ai'e plenty of good people as the times go, who have their dislikes, and who speak them too. Even the sharp-talking clergyman, you have heard say some very sour things about his landlord, who raised his rent the last year. And you know that he did not talk as mildly as he does in the Church, when he found Frank and yourself quietly filching a few of his peaches, through the orchai-d fence.