HALF-HOTJ&S WITH THE BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY CHARLES MORRIS. VOL. II. PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 1896. Copyright, 1886, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. ps 07 V.3. OOE"TEIsrTS. SUBJECT. AtTTHOB. PA0B Pompeii and Heroulaneum W. D. HOWELLS 7 Nancy Blynn's Lovers J. T. TROWBRIDGB 18 Baby Bell THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH . 35 Ascending Ktaadn HENRY DAVID THOHEAD . . 39 Impressions of Niagara MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI . 47 Poe THOMAS W. HIGGINSON ... 57 Review of the History of Slavery .... GEORGE BANCROFT 64 Sam Lawson, the Village Do-Nothing . . HARRIET BEECHER STOWE . 74 The Courtin' JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL . . 87 Primitive Forms of the Ordeal HENRY C. LEA 90 The Progress and Prospects of Literature in America R. W. GRISWOLD 99 Crocodiles on the St. John's WILLIAM BARTHAM .... 108 Life in Philadelphia in 1800 JOHN B. McMASTEB .... 115 Seeds and Swine FREDERICK S. COZZENS . . . 129 Among the Laurels ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN . 138 Author-Worship HENRY T. TUCKEBMAN . . . 142 Religious Experience JONATHAN EDWARDS .... 146 Resolutions for Conduct of Life " " .... 147 The Freedom of the Will " " .... 150 The Times that Tried Men's Soula .... THOMAS PAINE 152 The Maiden and the Rattlesnake W. G. SIMMS 163 The Sheriff of Calaveras BRET HARTE 170 Prelude to " Among the Hills" J. G. WHITTIER 181 Second Inaugural Address ABRAHAM LINCOLN .... 185 Gettysburg Oration " " .... 188 Winter Life and Scenery in Siberia .... GEORGE KENNAN 189 A Siberian Aurora " " 196 The Bluebird ALEXANDER WILSON .... 201 A Sojourn in Arcady ABBA G. WOOLSON 07 3 4 CONTENTS. SUBJECT. AUTHO*. PAOM Sunshine and Hope VARIOUS 217 Happiness J. R. LOWELL 217 Boyhood Days WASHINGTON ALLSTON . . . 219 Betrothed Anew E. C. STEDMAN 219 The Wine-Cup C. F. HOFFMAN 220 The Toast MARY KYLE DALLAS . . . 221 Dolce Far Niente CHARLES G. HALPINE . . . 222 The Basking Soul ANONYMOUS 223 Sunshine " 224 A Successful Ruse JOHN P. KENNEDY 226 The Moon in the Mill-Pond JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS' . . 238 Life and Scenery on the Congo HENRY M. STANLEY .... 244 The Conditions of English Thought . . . GEORGE S. MORRIS .... 255 The Culprit Fay JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE . . 265 The Origin of Language W. D. WHITNEY 272 A Declaration of Love W. D. HOWELLS 284 Life in Brushland " JOHN DARBY" 292 The American Revolution JARED SPARKS 302 Interview of Hadad and Tamar J. A. HILLHOUSE 307 Outwitting a Lawyer J. G. HOLLAND 312 Why I Left the Anvil ELIHU BURRITT 326 Our Debt to our Ancestors T. D. WOOLSEY 331 Don Quixote GEORGE TICKNOR 339 Kit Carson's Ride JOAQUIN MILLER 346 Through the Lines G. W. CABLE 351 The Light of the Harem SUSAN E. WALLACE .... 361 The Heat and Light of the Sun C. A. YOUNG 375 A Banquet at Aspasia's LYDIA MARIA CHILD . . . 380 The Owl-Critic JAMES T. FIELDS 388 Aunt Quimby ELIZA LESLIE 391 Tommy MARY A. DODGE 407 Farewell Address GEORGE WASHINGTON ... 416 Winter Pleasures E. H. ROLLINS 420 Shadow and Grief VARIOUS 431 The Flight of Youth R. H. STODDAHD 431 Resignation H. W. LONGFELLOW .... 431 The Death-Bed JAMES ALDRICH 432 Perdita ANONYMOUS 433 Nearer Home PHCEBE GARY 433 The Voiceless 0. W. HOLMES 434 The Haunted Palace . . E. A. Pos . . 435 CONTENTS. 5 SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAO1 Pomp's Religious Experience ANONYMOUS , . 437 My Notion of Music S. P. PAETON 442 Boston Blessings and Beans " " 445 Unknown Acquaintances " " 446 Life and its Mysteries " " 449 The Ruins of Uxmal FELIX L. OSWALD 451 Care of the Body M. V. TERHUNE 467 Spring-Time and Boyhood DONALD G. MITCHELL . . . 475 The Notch of the White Mountains . . . TIMOTHY DWICHT 483 Song of the Redwood-Tree WALT WHITMAN 489 Josiah Allen's Wife calls on the President . MARIETTA HOLLET .... 494 Deacon Quirk's Opinions E. S. PHELPS ....... 503 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. II. PAGE FALLS op NIAGARA, CANADIAN SIDE Frontispiece. OLD BARTRAM HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA 108 FRANCIS BRET HARTE 170 WILLIAM D. HOWELLS 284 THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM 363 A KEUNION AT THE HOUSE OF ASPASIA . . 382 HALF-HOURS WITH THE BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. W. D. HOWELLS. [William Dean Howells, who has recently risen into distinguished prominence as an American novelist of the first order of ahility, is a native of Ohio, where he was born in 1837. His works are somewhat wide in scope, embracing novels, travels, and poems. There are no more delicate bits of word-painting than some of the scenes in " Vene tian Life" and " Italian Journeys," from the latter of which we offer a selection. These are among his earlier works. More recently his attention has been given to fiction, in which he has attained a position of great popularity. His method is to depict life as it actually exists, devoid of all romance, and wearing its every-day garb. Yet he has a shrewd insight into character, and analyzes it with effective clearness. He has written several plays and short character-dramas.] POMPEII is, in truth, so full of marvel and surprise that it would be unreasonable to express disappointment with Pompeii in fiction. And yet I cannot help it. An exu berant carelessness of phrase in most writers and talkers who describe it had led me to expect much more than it was possible to find there. In my Pompeii I confess that the houses had no roofs : in fact, the rafters which sus- 7 8 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [How ELLS tained the tiles being burnt, how could the roofs help fall ing in ? But otherwise my Pompeii was a very complete affair : the walls all rose to their full height ; door- ways and arches were perfect ; the columns were all unbroken and upright; putting roofs on my Pompeii, you might have lived in it very comfortably. The real Pompeii is different. It is seldom that any wall is unbroken ; most columns are fragmentary ; and, though the ground-plan? are always distinct, very few rooms in the city are per feet in form, and the whole is much more ruinous than 1 thought. But this ruin once granted, and the idle disappoint ment at its greatness overcome, there is endless material for study, instruction, and delight. It is the revelation of another life, and the utterance of the past is here more perfect than anywhere else in the world. Indeed, I think that the true friend of Pompeii should make it a matter of conscience, on entering the enchanted city, to cast out of his knowledge all the rubbish that has fallen into it from novels and travels, and to keep merely the facts of the town's luxurious life and agonizing death, with such incidents of the eruption as he can remember from the description of Pliny. These are the spells to which the sorcery yields, and with these in your thought you can rehabilitate the city until Yentisei seems to be a valet de place of the first century, and yourselves a set of blond barbarians to whom he is showing off the splendors of one of the most brilliant towns of the empire of Titus. Those sad furrows in the pavement become vocal with the joyous rattle of chariot-wheels on a sudden, and you prudently step up on the narrow sidewalks and rub along by the little shops of wine, and grain, and oil, with which the thrifty voluptuaries of Pompeii flanked their street- doors. The counters of these shops run across their fronts, HOWELLSJ POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 9 and are pierced with round holes on the top, through which you see dark depths of oil in the jars below, and not sullen lumps of ashes ; those stately amphorae behind are full of wine, and in the corners are bags of wheat. " This house, with a shop on either side, whose is it, XXVI. ?" "It is the house of the great Sallust, my masters. Would you like his autograph ? I know one of his slaves who would sell it." You are a good deal stared at, naturally, as you pass by, for people in Pompeii have not much to do, and, besides, a Briton is not an every-day sight there, as he will be one of these centuries. The skins of wild beasts are little worn in Pompeii ; and those bold-eyed Roman women think it rather odd that we should like to powder our shaggy heads with brick-dust. However, these are mat ters of taste. "We, for our part, cannot repress a feeling of disgust at the loungers in the street, who, XXYI. tells us, are all going to soak themselves half the day in the baths yonder ; for, if there is in Pompeii one thing more offensive than another to our savage sense of propriety, it is the personal cleanliness of the inhabitants. "We little know what a change for the better will be wrought in these people with the lapse of time, and that they will yet come to wash themselves but once a year, as we do. (The reader may go on doing this sort of thing at some length for himself, and may imagine, if he pleases, a boast ful conversation among the Pompeians at the baths, in which the barbarians hear how Agricola has broken the backbone of a rebellion in Britain, and in which all the speakers begin their observations with " Ho I my Lepi- dus I" and " Ha ! my Diomed I" In the mean time we return to the present day, and step down the Street of Plenty along with Ventisei.) . . . 10 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HowELL* The cotton whitens over two-thirds of Pompeii yet in terred : happy the generation that lives to learn the won drous secrets of that sepulchre ! For, when you have once been at Pompeii, this phantasm of the past takes deeper hold on your imagination than any living city, and becomes and is the metropolis of your dream-land forever. O mar vellous city ! who shall reveal the cunning of your spell ? Something not death, something not life, something that is the one when you turn to determine its essence as the other ! What is it comes to me at this distance of that which I saw in Pompeii ? The narrow and curving, but not crooked, streets, with the blazing sun of that Nea politan November falling into them, or clouding their wheel-worn lava with the black, black shadows of the many-tinted walls ; the houses, and the gay columns of white, yellow, and red ; the delicate pavements of mosaic ; the skeletons of dusty cisterns and dead fountains ; in animate garden-spaces with pygmy statues suited to their littleness ; suites of fairy bedchambers, painted with ex quisite frescos ; dining-halls with joyous scenes of hunt and banquet on their walls; the ruinous sites of tem ples ; the melancholy emptiness of booths and shops and jolly drinking-houses ; the lonesome tragic theatre, with a modern Pompeian drawing water from a well there; the baths with their roofs perfect yet, and the stucco bass-reliefs all but unharmed ; around the whole, the city wall crowned with slender poplars ; outside the gates, the long avenue of tombs, and the Appian Way stretching on to StabijB ; and, in the distance, Vesuvius, brown and bare, with his fiery breath scarce visible against the cloud less heaven ; these are the things that float before my fancy as I turn back to look at myself walking those en chanted streets, and to wonder if I could ever have been eo blest. HOWKLLS] POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 11 For there is nothing on the earth, or under it, like Pompeii. . . . The plans of nearly all the houses in the city are alike : the entrance-room next the door ; the parlor or drawing- room next that ; then the impluvium, or unroofed space in the middle of the house, where the rains were caught and drained into the cistern, and where the household used to come to wash itself, primitively, as at a pump ; the little garden, with its painted columns, behind the impluvium, and, at last, the dining-room. There are minute bed chambers on either side, and, as I said, a shop at one side in front, for the sale of the master's grain, wine, and oil. The pavements of all the houses are of mosaic, which, in the better sort, is very delicate and beautiful, and is found sometimes perfectly uninjured. An exquisite pattern, often repeated, is a ground of tiny cubes of white marble with dots of black dropped regularly into it. Of course there were many picturesque and fanciful designs, of which the best have been removed to the Museum in Naples; but several good ones are still left, and (like that of the Wild Boar) give names to the houses in which they are found. But, after all, the great wonder, the glory, of these Pompeian houses is in their frescos. If I tried to give an idea of the luxury of color in Pompeii, the most gor geous adjectives would be as poorly able to reproduce a vivid and glowing sense of those hues as the photography which now copies the drawing of the decorations : so I do not try. I know it is a cheap and feeble thought, and yet, let the reader please to consider: A workman nearly two thousand years ago laying upon the walls those soft lines that went to make up fauns and satyrs, nymphs and naiads, heroes and gods and goddesses ; and getting weary and lying down to sleep, and dreaming of an eruption of the 12 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOWELLB mountain ; of the city buried under a fiery hail, and slum bering in its bed of ashes seventeen centuries ; then of its being slowly exhumed, and, after another lapse of years, of some one coming to gather the shadow of that dreamer's work upon a plate of glass, that he might infinitely re produce it and sell it to tourists at from five francs to fifty centimes a copy, I say, consider such a dream, dreamed in the hot heart of the day, after certain cups of Yesuvian wine ! What a piece of Katzenjammer (I can use no milder term) would that workman think it when he woke again ! Alas I what is history and the progress of the arts and sciences but one long Katzenjammer f Photography cannot give, any more than I, the colors of the frescos, but it can do the drawing better, and, 1 suspect, the spirit also. I used the word workman, and not artist, in speaking of the decoration of the walls, for in most cases the painter was only an artisan, and did his work probably by the yard, as the artisan who paints walls and ceilings in Italy does at this day. But the old workman did his work much more skilfully and tastefully than the modern, threw on expanses of mellow color, delicately panelled off the places for the scenes, and pen cilled in the figures and draperies (there are usually more of the one than the other) with a deft hand. Of course the houses of the rich were adorned by men of talent ; but it is surprising to see the community of thought and feeling in all this work, whether it be from cunninger or clumsier hands. The subjects are nearly always chosen from the fables of the gods, and they are in illustration of the poets, Homer and the rest. To suit that soft, lux urious life which people led in Pompeii, the themes are commonly amorous, and sometimes not too chaste : there is much of Bacchus and Ariadne, much of Venus and Adonis, and Diana bathes a good deal with her nymphs, HOWELLS] POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 13 not to mention frequent representations of the toilet of that beautiful monster which the lascivious art of the time loved to depict. One of the most pleasing of all the scenes is that in one of the houses, of the Judgment of Paris, in which the shepherd sits upon a bank in an attitude of ineffable and flattered importance, with one leg carelessly crossing the other, and both hands resting lightly on his shepherd's crook, while the goddesses before him await his sentence. Naturally, the painter has done his best for the victress in this rivalry, and you see "Idalian Aphrodite beautiful," as she should be, but with a warm and piquant spice of girlish resentment in her attitude, that Paris should pause for an instant, which is altogether delicious. " And I beheld great Here's angry eyes." Awful eyes! How did the painter make them? The wonder of all these pagan frescos is the mystery of the eyes, still, beautiful, unhuman. You cannot believe that it is wrong for those tranquil-eyed men and women to do evil, they look so calm and so unconscious in it all ; and in the presence of the celestials, as they bend upon you those eternal orbs, in whose regard you are but a part of space, you feel that here art has achieved the unearthly. I know of no words in literature which give a sense (noth ing gives the idea) of the stare of these gods, except that magnificent line of Kingsley's, describing the advance over the sea toward Andromeda of the oblivious and unsympathizing Nereids. They floated slowly up, and their eyes "Stared on her, silent and still, like the eyes in the house of the idols." ii. 2 X 4 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HowELLS The colors of this fresco of the Judgment of Paris are still so fresh and bright that it photographs very well ; but there are other frescos wherein there is more visible perfection of line, but in which the colors are so dim that they can only be reproduced by drawings. One of these is the wounded Adonis cared for by Yenus and the Loves ; in which the story is treated with a playful pathos won derfully charming. The fair boy leans in the languor of his hurt toward Yenus, who sits utterly disconsolate be side him, while the Cupids busy themselves with such slight surgical offices as Cupids may render : one prepares a linen bandage for the wound, another wraps it round the leg of Adonis, another supports one of his heavy arms, another finds his own emotions too much for him and pauses to weep. It is a pity that the colors of this beau tiful fresco are grown so dim, and a greater pity that most of the other frescos in Pompeii must share its fate, and fade away. The hues are vivid when the walls are first uncovered and the ashes washed from the pictures, but then the malice of the elements begins anew, and rain and sun draw the life out of tints which the volcano failed to obliterate. In nearly all cases they could be preserved by throwing a roof above the walls ; and it is a wonder that the government does not take this slight trouble to save them. Among the frescos which told no story but their own, we were most pleased with one in a delicately-painted little bedchamber. This represented an alarmed and fur tive man, whom we at once pronounced The Belated Hus band, opening a door with a night-latch. Nothing could have been better than this miserable wretch's cowardly haste and cautious noiselessness in applying his key: ap prehension sat upon his brow, confusion dwelt in his guilty eye. He had been out till two o'clock in the morning, HOWKLLS] POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 15 electioneering for Pansa, the friend of the people (" Pansa, and Eoman gladiators," "Pansa, and Christians to the Beasts," was the platform), and he had left his placens uxor at home alone with the children, and now within this door that placens uxor awaited him 1 ... The afternoon on which we visited Herculaneum was in melancholy contrast to the day we spent in Pompeii. The lingering summer had at last saddened into something like autumnal gloom, and that blue, blue sky of Naples was overcast. So, this second draught of the spirit of the past had not only something of the insipidity of custom, but brought rather a depression than a lightness to our hearts. There was so little of "Herculaneum : only a few hundred yards square are exhumed, and we counted the houses easily on the fingers of one hand, leaving the thumb to stand for the few rods of street that, with its flagging of lava and narrow border of foot-walks, lay be tween; and though the custodian, apparently moved at our dejection, said that the excavation was to be resumed the very next week, the assurance did little to restore our cheerfulness. Indeed, I fancy that these old cities must needs be seen in the sunshine by those who would feel what gay lives they once led : by dimmer light they are very sullen spectres, and their doom still seems to brood upon them. I know that even Pompeii could not have been joyous that sunless afternoon, for what there was to see of mournful Herculaneum was as brilliant with colors as anything in the former city. Nay, I believe that the tints of the frescos and painted columns were even brighter, and that the walls of the houses were far less ruinous, than those of Pompeii. But no house was wholly freed from lava, and the little street ran at the rear of the buildings, which were supposed to front on some grander avenue not yet exhumed. It led down, as the custodian pretended, 16 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HowELLS to a wharf, and he showed an iron ring in the wall of the House of Argo, standing at the end of the street, to which, he said, his former fellow-citizens used to fasten their boats, though it was all dry enough there now. There is evidence in Herculaneum of much more ambi tious architecture than seems to have been known in Pom peii. The ground-plan of the houses in the two cities is alike ; but in the former there was often a second story, as was proven by the charred ends of beams still protruding from the walls, while in the latter there is only one house which is thought to have aspired to a second floor. The House of Argo is also much larger than any in Pompeii, and its appointments were more magnificent. Indeed, wo imagined that in this more purely Greek town we felt an atmosphere of better taste in everything than prevailed in the fashionable Roman watering-place, though this, too, was a summer resort of the " best society" of the empire. The mosaic pavements were exquisite, and the little bed chambers dainty and delicious in their decorations. The lavish delight in color found expression in the vividest hues upon the walls, and not only were the columns of the garden painted, but the foliage of the capitals was variously tinted. The garden of the House of Argo was vaster than any of the classic world which we had yet seen, and was superb with a long colonnade of unbroken columns. Between these and the walls of the houses was a pretty pathway of mosaic, and in the midst once stood marble tables, under which the workmen exhuming the city found certain crouching skeletons. At one end was the dining-room, of course, and painted on the wall was a lady with a parasol. I thought all Herculaneum sad enough, but the prolu sion of flowers growing wild in this garden gave it a yet more tender and pathetic charm. Here where so long Ho WELLS] POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 17 ago the flowers had bloomed, and perished in the terrible blossoming of the mountain that sent up its fires in the awful similitude of Nature's harmless and lovely forms, and showered its destroying petals all abroad was it not tragic to find again the soft tints, the graceful shapes, the sweet perfumes, of the earth's immortal life ? Of them that planted and tended and plucked and bore in their tosoms and twined in their hair these fragile children of the summer, what witness in the world ? Only the crouch ing skeletons under the tables. Alas and alas ! The skeletons went with us throughout Herculaneum, and descended into the cell, all green with damp, under the basilica, and lay down, fettered and manacled, in the place of those found there beside the big bronze kettle in which the prisoners used to cook their dinners. How ghastly the thought of it was ! If we had really seen this kettle and the skeletons there as we did not we could not have suffered more than we did. They took all the life out of the House of Perseus, and the beauty from his pretty little domestic temple to the Penates, and this was all there was left in Herculaneum to see. " Is there nothing else ?" we demand of the custodian. " Signori, this is all." " It is mighty little." " Perdoni, signori ! ma " " Well," we say sourly to each other, glancing round at the walls of the pit on the bottom of which, the bit of city stands, " it is a good thing to know that Herculaneum amounts to nothing." 2* 18 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TBOWBKIDQB NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. J. T. TROWBRIDGE. [The lists of American humor are well and ably filled. It is ques tionable if any European literature can vie with that of the United States in the variety of its humorous productions. And of our puro humorists, both in prose and in verse, none holds a higher position than John Townsend Trowbridge. In the amusing short tale he is an artist of great ability, and some of his situations are uproariously funny. From his volume entitled " Coupon Bonds" we select, not the most amusing of its stories, but the one we can give in the most complete form. Mr. Trowbridge was born in Monroe County, New York, in 1827. He has contributed much to periodicals, and several volumes of his contributions, in prose and in verse, have been published.] WILLIAM TANSLEY, familiarly called Tip, having finished his afternoon's work in Judge Boxton's garden, milked the cows, and given the calves and pigs their supper, not forgetting to make sure of his own, stole out of the house with his Sunday jacket and the secret intention of going " a-sparking." Tip's manner of setting about this delicate business was characteristic of his native shrewdness. He usually went well provided with gifts ; and on the present occasion, before quitting the Judge's premises, he " drew upon" a certain barrel in the barn, which was his bank, where he had made, during the day, frequent deposits of green corn, of the diminutive species called tucket, smuggled in from the garden, and designed for roasting and eating with the "Widow Blynn's pretty daughter. Stealthily, in the dusk, stopping now and then to listen, Tip brought out the little milky ears from beneath the straw, crammed his pockets with them, and packed full the crown of his old straw hat ; then, with the sides of his jacket distended, his trou sers bulged, and a toppling weight on his head, he peeped TROWBRIDGE] NANCY BLFNN'S LOVERS. 19 cautiously from the door to see that the way was clear for an escape to the orchard, and thence, '"cross lots," to the Widow Blynn's house. Tip was creeping furtively behind a wall, stooping, with one hand steadying his hat and the other his pockets, when a voice called his name. It was the voice of Cephas Boxton. Now, if there was a person in the world whom Tip feared and hated, it was " that Cephe," and this for many reasons, the chief of which was that the Judge's son did, upon occasions, flirt with Miss Nancy Blynn, who, sharing the popular preju dice in favor of fine clothes and riches, preferred, appar ently, a single passing glance from Cephas to all Tip's gifts and attentions. Tip dropped down behind the wall. " Tip Tansley !" again called the hated voice. But the proprietor of that euphonious name, not choos ing to answer to it, remained quiet, one hand still support ing his hat, the other his pockets, while young Boxton, to whom glimpses of the aforesaid hat, appearing over the edge of the wall, had previously been visible, stepped quickly and noiselessly to the spot. Tip crouched, with his unconscious eyes in the grass ; Cephas watched him good-humoredly, leaning over the wall. " If it isn't Tip, what is it ?" And Cephas struck one Bide of the distended jacket with his cane. An ear of corn dropped out. He struck the other side, and out dropped another ear. A couple of smart blows across the back succeeded, followed by more corn ; and at the same time Tip, getting up, and endeavoring to protect his pockets, let go his hat, which fell off, spilling its contents in the grass. " Did you call ?" gasped the panic-stricken Tip. The rivals stood with the wall between them, as ludi- 20 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRIDGB crous a contrast, I dare assert, as ever two lovers of one woman presented. Tip, abashed and afraid, brushed the hair out of his eyes and made an unsuccessful attempt to look the hand some and smiling Cephas in the face. "Do you pretend you did not hear with all these ears ?" said the Judge's son. " I I was a-huntin' for a shoe-string," murmured Tip, casting dismayed glances along the ground. " I lost one here some'eres." " Tip," said Cephas, putting his cane under Master Tans- ley's chin to assist him in holding up his head, " look me in the eye, and tell me, what is the difference 'twixt you and that corn?" " I d'n' know what ?" And, liberating his chin, Tip dropped his head again, and began kicking again in the grass in search of the imaginary shoe-string. " That is lying on the ground, and you are lying on your feet," said Cephas. Tip replied that he was going to the woods for bean poles, and that he took the corn to feed the cattle in the " back pastur', 'cause they hooked." " I wish you were as innocent of hooking as the cattle are !" said the incredulous Cephas. " Go and put the sad dle on Pericles." Tip proceeded in a straight line to the stable, his pockets dropping corn by the way ; while Cephas, laugh ing quietly, walked up and down under the trees. " Hoss's ready," muttered Tip from the barn door. Instead of leading Pericles out, he left him in the stall, and climbed up into the hay-loft to hide, and brood over his misfortune until his rival's departure. It was not alone the affair of the stolen corn that troubled Tip ; but from the fact that Pericles was ordered, he suspected that TROWBRIDGE] NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. 21 Cephas likewise purposed paying a visit to Nancy Blynn. Resolved to wait and watch, he lay under the dusty roof, chewing the bitter cud of envy, and now and then a stem of new-mown timothy, till Cephas entered the stalls be neath, and said, "Be still!" in his clear, resonant tones, to Pericles. Pericles uttered a quick, low whinny of recognition, and ceased pawing the floor. " Are you there, Cephas ?" presently said another voice. It was that of the Judge, who had followed his son into the barn. Tip lay with his elbows on the hay, and lis tened. " Going to ride, are you ? Who saddled this horse ?" " Tip," replied Cephas. "He didn't half curry him. Wait a minute. I'm ashamed to let a horse go out looking so." And the Judge began to polish off Pericles with wispa of straw. " Darned ef I care !" muttered Tip. " Cephas," said the Judge, " I don't want to make you vain, but I must say you ride the handsomest colt in the county. I'm proud of Pericles. Does his shoe pinch him lately ?" "Not since 'twas set. He looks well enough, father. Your eyes are better than mine," said Cephas, " if you can Bee any dust on his coat." " I luf to rub a colt, it does 'em so much good," re joined the Judge. " Cephas, if you are going by 'Squire Stedman's, I'd like to have you call and get that mort gage." " I don't think I shall ride that way, father. I'll go for it in the morning, however." " Never mind, unless you happen that way. Just hand me a wisp of that straw, Cephas." 22 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. Cephas handed his father the straw. The Judge rubbed away some seconds longer, then said, carelessly, " If you are going up the mountain, I wish you would stop and tell Colby I'll take those lambs, and send for 'em next freek." " I'm not sure that I shall go as far as Colby's," replied Cephas. "People say" the Judge's voice changed slightly "you don't often get farther than the Widow Blynn's when 3'ou travel that road. How is it ?" " Ask the widow," said Cephas. " Ask her daughter, more like," rejoined the Judge. Tip Tansley, more excited than he had ever been in his life, waited until the two had left the barn ; then, creeping over the hay. hitting his head in the dark against the low rafters, he slid from his hiding-place, carefully descended the stairs, gathered up what he could find of the scattered ears of tucket, and set out to run through the orchard and across the fields to the Widow Blynn's cottage. The evening was starry, and the edges of the few dark clouds that lay low in the east predicted the rising moon. Halt ing only to climb fences, or to pick up now and then the corn that persisted in dropping from his pockets, or to scrutinize some object that he thought looked " pokerish" in the dark, prudently shunning the dismal woods on one side, and the pasture where the " hooking" cattle were on the other, Tip kept on, 'and arrived, all palpitating and perspiring, at the widow's house, just as the big red moon was coming up amidst the clouds over the hill. He had left a good deal of his corn and all his courage behind him in his flight ; for Tip, ardently as he loved the beautiful .Nancy, could lay no claim to her on the poetical ground that " the brave deserve the fair." TROWBRIDGK] NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. 23 With, uncertain knuckles Tip rapped on the humble door, having first looked through the kitchen window and seen the widow sitting within, sewing by the light of a tallow candle. " Good-evening, William," said Mrs. Blynn, opening the door, with her spectacles on her forehead, and her work gathered up in her lap under her bent figure. " Come in ; take a chair." " Guess I can't stop," replied Tip. sidling into the room with his hat on. " How's all the folks ? Nancy to hum ?" " Nancy's up-stairs ; I'll speak to her. Nancy," called the widow at the chamber door, " Tip is here ! Better take a chair while you stop," she added, smiling upon the visitor, who always, on arriving, "guessed he couldn't stop," and usually ended by remaining until he was sent away. " Wai, may as well ; jest as cheap settin' as standin'," said Tip, depositing the burden of his personality weight, one hundred and forty-six pounds upon one of the creaky, splint-bottomed chairs. " Pooty warm night, kind o'," raising his arm to wipe his face with his sleeve; upon which an ear of that discontented tucket took occasion to tumble upon the floor. " Hello ! what's that ? By gra cious, if 'ta'n't green corn ! Got any fire ? Guess we'll have a roast." And Tip, taking off his hat, began to empty his stuffed pockets into it. " Law me !" said the widow, squinting over her work. " I thought your pockets stuck out amazin' ! I ha'n't had the first taste of green corn this year. It's real kind o' thoughtful in you, Tip ; but the fire's all out, and we can't think of roastin' on't to-night, as I see." " Mebby Nancy will," chuckled Tim. " Ain't she comin' down ? Any time to-night, Nancy !" cried Tip, raising hia 24 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. voice, to be heard by his beloved in her retreat. " You do'no what I brought ye !" Now, sad as the truth may sound to the reader sympa thizing with Tip, Nancy cared little what he had brought, and experienced no very ardent desire to come down and meet him. She sat at her window, looking at the stars, and thinking of somebody who she had hoped would visit her that night. But that somebody was not Tip ; and although the first sound of his footsteps had set her heart fluttering with expectation, his near approach, breathing fast and loud, had given her a chill of disappointment, almost of disgust, and she now much preferred her own thoughts, and the moonrise through the trees in the di rection of Judge Boxton's house, to all the green corn and all the green lovers in New England. Her mother, how ever, who commiserated Tip, and believed as much in being civil to neighbors as she did in keeping the Sabbath, called again, and gave her no peace until she had left the window, the moonrise, and her romantic dreams, and de scended into the prosaic atmosphere of the kitchen and of Tip and his corn. How lovely she looked, to Tip's eyes ! Her plain, neat calico gown, enfolding a wonderful little rounded embodi ment of grace and beauty, seemed to him an attire fit for any queen or fairy that ever lived. But it was the same old tragic story over again : although Tip loved Nancy, Nancy loved not Tip. However he might flatter himself, her regard for him was on the cool side of sisterly, sim ply the toleration of a kindly heart for one who was not to blame for being less bright than other people. She took her sewing and sat by the table, oh, so beau tiful ! Tip thought, and enveloped in a charmed atmos phere which seemed to touch and transfigure every object except himself. The humble apartment, the splint- TROWBKIDGE] NANCY BLFNN'S LOVERS. 25 bottomed chairs, the stockings drying on the pole, even the widow's cap and gown, and the old black snuffers on the table, all, save poor, homely Tip, stole a ray of grace from the halo of her loveliness. Nancy discouraged the proposition of roasting corn, and otherwise deeply grieved her visitor by intently work ing and thinking, instead of taking part in the conversa tion. At length a bright idea occurred to him. " Got a slate and pencil ?" The widow furnished the required articles. He then found a book, and, using the cover as a rule, marked out the plan of a game. "Fox and geese, Nancy; ye play?" And, having pricked off a sufficient number of kernels from one of the ears of corn, and placed them upon the slate for geese, he selected the largest he could find for a fox, stuck it upon a pin, and proceeded to roast it in the candle. " Which'll ye have, Nancy ?" pushing the slate toward her : " take your choice, and give me the geese ; then beat me if you can ! Come, won't ye play ?" "Oh, dear, Tip, what a tease you are !" said Nancy. " I don't want to play. I must work. Get mother to play with you, Tip." "She don't wanter!" exclaimed Tip. "Come, Nancy; then I'll tell ye suthin' I heard jest 'fore I come away, euthin' 'bout you !" And Tip, assuming a careless air, proceeded to pile up the ears of corn, log-house fashion, upon the table, while Nancy was finishing her seam. " About me ?" she echoed. "You'd ha' thought so!" said Tip, slyly glancing over the corn as he spoke, to watch the effect on Nancy. " Cephe and the old man had the all-firedest row, tell you !" II. B 3 26 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRIDGB He hitched around in his chair, and, resting his elbows on his knees, looked up, shrewd and grinning, into her face. " William Tansley, what do you mean ?" " As if you couldn't guess ! Cephe was comin' to see you to-night; but he won't," chuckled Tip. "Say! ye veady for fox and geese ?" " How do you know that ?" demanded Nancy. " 'Cause I heard I The old man stopped him, and Cephe was goin' to ride over him, but the old man was too much for him ; he jerked him off the hoss, and there they had it, lickety-switch, rough-and-tumble, till Cephe give in, and told the old man, ruther'n have any words, he'd promise never to come and see you ag'in if he'd give him three thousand dollars ; and the old man said 'twas a bargain !" "Is that true, Tip?" cried the widow, dropping her work and raising her hands. " True as I live and breathe, and draw the breath of life, and have a livin' bein" I" Tip solemnly affirmed. "Just as I always told you, Nancy!" exclaimed the widow. " I knew how it would be. I felt sartin Cephas couldn't be depended upon. His father never'd hear a word to it, I always said. Now don't feel bad, Nancy ; don't mind it. It'll be all for the best, I hope. Now, don't, Nancy ; don't, I beg and beseech." She saw plainly by the convulsive movement of the girl's bosom and the quivering of her lip that some pas sionate demonstration was threatened. Tip meanwhile had advanced his chair still nearer, contorting his neck and looking up with leering malice into her face until his nose almost touched her cheek. " What do ye think now of Cephe Boxton ?" he asked, tauntingly ; " hey ?" A stinging blow upon the ear rewarded his impertinence, TROWBRIDGE] NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. 27 aud he recoiled so suddenly that his chair went over and threw him sprawling upon the floor. " Gosh all hemlock !" he muttered, scrambling to his feet, rubbing first his elbow, then his ear. " What's that fur, I'd like to know, knockin' a feller down?" " What do I think of Cephas Boxton ?" cried Nancy. " I think the same I did before, why shouldn't I ? Your slander is no slander. Now sit down and behave yourself, and don't put your face too near mine, if you don't want your ears boxed !" " Why, Nancy, how could you ?" groaned the widow. Nancy made no reply, but resumed her work very much as if nothing had happened. " Hurt you much, William ?" "Not much; only it made my elbow sing like all Je- rewsalem ! Never mind ; she'll find out ! Where's my hat?" " You ain't going, be ye ?" said Mrs. Blynn, with an air of solicitude. " I guess I ain't wanted here," mumbled Tip, pulling his hat over his ears. He struck the slate, scattering the fox and geese, and demolished the house of green corn. " You can keep that ; I don't want it. Good-night, Miss Blynn." Tip placed peculiar emphasis upon the name, and fum bled a good while with the latch, expecting Nancy would say something ; but she maintained a cool and dignified silence, and, as nobody urged him to stay, he reluctantly departed, his heart full of injury, and his hopes collapsed like his pockets. For some minutes Nancy continued to sew intently and fast, her flushed face bowed over the seam ; then suddenly her eyes blurred, her fingers forgot their cunning, the needle shot blindly hither and thither, and the quickly- drawn thread snapped in twain. 28 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWRRIDGK " Nancy ! Nancy ! don't !" pleaded Mrs. Blynn ; " I beg of ye, now don't !" " Oh, mother," burst forth the young girl, with sobs, ' I am so unhappy ! "What did I strike poor Tip for ? Ho did not know any better. I am always doing something so wrong ! He could not have made up the story. Cephas would have come here to-night, I know he would." "Poor child! poor child!" said Mrs. Blynn. "Why couldn't you hear to me ? I always told you to be carefu, and not like Cephas too well. But maybe Tip didn't un derstand. Maybe Cephas will come to-morrow, and then all will be explained." "Cephas is true, I know, I know!" wept Nancy, "but his father " ft $ $ * $ $ * One evening it was stormy, and Nancy and her mother were together in the plain, tidy kitchen, both sewing and both silent; gusts of rain lashing the windows, and the cat purring in a chair. Nancy's heart was more quiet than usual ; for, although expectation was not quite ex tinct, no visitor surely could be looked for on such a night. Suddenly, however, amidst the sounds of the storm, she heard footsteps and a knock at the door. Yet she need not have started and changed color so tumultuously, for the visitor was only Tip. " Good-evenin'," said young Master Tansley, stamping, pulling off his dripping hat, and shaking it. " I'd no idee it rained so! I was goin' by, and thought I'd stop in. Ye mad, Nancy ?" And he peered at the young girl from beneath his wet hair with a bashful grin. Nancy's heart was too much softened to cherish any resentment, and with suffused eyes she begged Tip to for give the blow. " Wai, I do'no' what I'd done to be knocked down fur," IROWBRIBGE] NANCF BLYNN'S LOVERS. 29 began Tip, with a pouting and aggrieved air ; " though I e'pose I dew, tew. But I guess what I told ye turned out about so, after all; didn't it, hey?" At Nancy's look of distress, Mrs. Blynn made signs for Tip to forbear. But he had come too far through the darkness and rain with an exciting piece of news to bo thus easily silenced. " I ha'n't brought ye no corn this time, for I didn't know as you'd roast it if I did. Say, Nancy ! Cephe and the old man had it ag'in to-day ; and the Judge forked over the three thousand dollars ; I seen him ! He was only waitin' to raise it. It's real mean in Cephe, I s'pose you think. Mebby 'tis ; but, by gracious ! three thousand dollars is a 'tarnal slue of money !" Hugely satisfied with the effect this announcement pro duced, Tip sprawled upon a chair and chewed a stick, like one resolved to make himself comfortable for the evening. " Saxafrax, ye want some ?" he said, breaking off with his teeth a liberal piece of the stick. " Say, Nancy ! ye needn't look so mad. Cephe has sold out, I tell ye ; and when I offer ye saxafrax ye may as well take some." Not without effort Nancy held her peace ; and Tip, ex tending the fragment of the sassafras-root which his teeth had split off, was complacently urging her to accept it, " 'Twas real good," when the sound of hoofs was heard ; a halt at the gate ; a horseman dismounting, leading his animal to the shed; a voice saying, "Be still, Pericles!" and footsteps approaching the door. "Nancy! Nancy!" articulated Mrs. Blynn, scarcely less agitated than her daughter, " he has come !" " It's Cephe !" whispered Tip, hoarsely. " If he should ketch me here ! I I guess I'll go ! Confound that Cephe, anyhow !" n. 3* 30 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRIDGK Rap, rap ! two light, decisive strokes of a riding-whip on the kitchen door. Mrs. Blynn glanced around to see if everything was tidy ; and Tip, dropping his sassafras, whirled about and wheeled about like Jim Crow in the excitement of the moment. " Mother, go !" uttered Nancy, pale with emotion, hur riedly pointing to the door. She made her escape by the stairway ; observing which, the bewildered Tip, who had indulged a frantic thought of leaping from the window to avoid meeting his dread rival, changed his mind and rushed after her. Unadvised of his intention, and thinking only of shutting herself from the sight of young Boxton, Nancy closed the kitchen door rather severely upon Tip's fingers ; but his fear rendered him insensible to pain, and he followed her, scrambling up the dark staircase just as Mrs. Blynn admitted Cephas. Nancy did not immediately perceive what had occurred ; but presently, amidst the sounds of the rain on the roof and of the wind about the gables, she heard the unmis takable perturbed breathing of her luckless lover. "Nancy," whispered Tip, "where be ye? I've 'most broke my head ag'in' this blasted beam !" " What are you here for ?" demanded Nancy. " 'Cause I didn't want him to see me. He won't stop but a minute ; then I'll go down. I did give my head the all-firedest tunk !" said Tip. Mrs. Blynn opened the door to inform Nancy of the arrival of her visitor, and the light from below, partially illuminating the fugitive's retreat, showed Tip in a sitting posture on one of the upper stairs, diligently rubbing that portion of his cranium which had come in collision with the beam. " Say, Nancy, don't go I" whispered Tip ; " don't leave me here in the dark !" NANCT BLYNN'S LOVERS. 31 Nancy had too many tumultuous thoughts of her own to give much heed to his distress; and, having hastily arranged her hau - and dress by the sense of touch, she glided by him, bidding him keep quiet, and descended the stairs to the door, which she closed after her, leaving him to the wretched solitude of the place, which ap peared to him a hundredfold more dark and dreadful than before. Cephas in the mean time had divested himself of his oil-cloth capote, and entered the neat little sitting-room, to which he was civilly shown by the widow. " Nancy'll be down in a minute." And, placing a candle upon the mantel-piece, Mrs. Blynn withdrew. Nancy, having regained her self-possession, appeared mighty dignified before her lover; gave him a passive hand; declined, with averted head, his proffered kiss; and seated herself at a cool and respectable distance. "Nancy, what is the matter?" said Cephas, in mingled amazement and alarm. " You act as though I was a ped dler and you didn't care to trade." " You can trade, sir, you can make what bargains you please, with others ; but " Nancy's aching and swelling heart came up and choked her. " Nancy ! what have I done ? "What has changed you so? Have you forgotten the last time I was here?" " 'Twould not be strange if I had, it was so long ago !" Poor Nancy spoke cuttingly ; but her sarcasm was as a sword with two points, which pierced her own heart quite as much as it wounded her lover's. " Nancy," said Cephas, and he took her hand again, so tenderly that it was like putting heaven away to with draw it, " couldn't you trust me ? Hasn't your heart as sured you that I could never stay away from you so with out good reasons ?" 32 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRII>GE "Oh, I don't doubt but you had reasons!" replied Nancy, with a bursting anguish in her tones. " But such reasons 1" " Such reasons ?" repeated Cephas, grieved and repelled. " Will you please inform me what you mean ? For, as I live, I am ignorant." " Ah, Cephas ! it is not true, then," cried Nancy, with sudden hope, " that your father " "What of my father?" " That he has offered you money " A vivid emotion flashed across the young man's face. " I would have preferred to tell you without being ques tioned so sharply," he replied. " But, since hearsay has got the start of me and brought you the news, I can only answer he has offered me money." " To buy you to hire you " " Not to marry any poor girl : that's the bargain, Nancy," said Cephas, with the tenderest of smiles. " And you have accepted ?" cried Nancy, quickly. " I have accepted," responded Cephas. Nancy uttered not a word. "I came to tell you all this; but I should have told you in a different way, could I have had my choice," said Cephas. " What I have done is for your happiness as much as my own. My father threatened to disin herit me if I married a poor girl ; and how could I bear the thought of subjecting you to such a lot? He has given me three thousand dollars ; I only received it to day, or I should have come to you before; for, Nancy, do not look so strange ! it is for you, this money, do you hear?" He attempted to draw her towards him, but she sprang indignantly to her feet. '* Cephas ! you offer me money !" TROWBKIDGE] NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. 33 " Nancy !" Cephas caught her and folded her in his arms, " don't you understand ? It is your dowry ! You are no longer a poor girl. I promised not to marry any poor girl, but I never promised not to marry you. Accept the dowry; then you will be a rich girl, and my wife, my wife, Nancy !" " Oh, Cephas ! is it true ? Let me look at you !" She held him firmly, and looked into his face, and into his deep, tender eyes. " It is true !" What more was said or done I am unable to relate ; for about this time there came from another part of the house a dull, reverberating sound, succeeded by a rapid series of concussions, as of some ponderous body descending in a swift but irregular manner from the top to the bottom of the stairs. It was Master William Tansley, who, groping about in the dark with intent to find a stove-pipe hole at which to listen, had lost his latitude and his equilibrium, and tumbled from landing to landing, in obedience to the dangerous laws of gravitation. Mrs. Blynn flew to open the door ; found him helplessly kicking on his back, with his head in the rag-bag ; drew him forth by one arm ; as certained that he had met with no injuries which a little salve would not heal ; patched him up almost as good