The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern Part 22

LXXV.

"DON'T DISTURB HIM!"

"'If your husband looks grave, let him alone; don't disturb or annoy him.'

"Oh, pshaw! when I'm married, the soberer my husband looked, the more fun I'd rattle about his ears. '_Don't disturb him!_' I guess so! I'd salt his coffee--and pepper his tea--and sugar his beef-steak--and tread on his toes--and hide his newspaper--and sew up his pockets--and put pins in his slippers--and dip his cigars in water--and I wouldn't stop for the Great Mogul, till I had shortened his long face to my liking. Certainly he'd 'get vexed,' there wouldn't be any fun in teasing him if he didn't, and that would give his melancholy blood a good healthful start, and his eyes would snap and sparkle, and he'd say, 'f.a.n.n.y, WILL you be quiet or not?' and I should laugh, and pull his whiskers, and say, decidedly, '_Not!_' and then I should tell him he hadn't the slightest idea how handsome he looked when he was vexed, and then he would pretend not to hear the compliment--but would pull up his d.i.c.key, and take a sly peep in the gla.s.s (for all that!) and then he'd begin to grow amiable, and get off his stilts, and be just as agreeable all the rest of the evening _as if he wasn't my husband_, and all because I didn't follow that stupid bit of advice 'to let him alone.' Just imagine ME, f.a.n.n.y, sitting down on a cricket in the corner, with my forefinger in my mouth, looking out the sides of my eyes, and waiting till that man got ready to speak to me! You can see at once it would be--be----Well, the amount of it is, I _shouldn't do it_!"

LXXVI.

A MODEL HUSBAND.

"'A MODEL HUSBAND.--Mrs. Perry, a young Bloomer, has eloped from Monson, Ma.s.s., with Levins Clough. When her husband found she was determined to go, he gave her $100 to start with.'

"That's what I call doing things _handsomely_! I should have taken that 100 dollar bill and handed it to Mr. Levins Clough, as a healing plaster for his disappointed expectations, and gone home, hugging my old man, and resolving to mend every rip in his coat, gloves, vest, pants, and stockings, 'free gratis,' from that repentant hour, till the millennial day. I'd hand him his cigar-case and slippers, put away his cane, hang up his coat and hat, trim his beard and whiskers, give him the strongest cup of tea, and the brownest slice of toast, and all 'the dark meat' of the turkey. I'd wink at his sherry cobblers, and whiskey punches, and mint juleps. I'd help him get a 'ten strike' at ninepins. I'd give him a 'night-key,' and be perfectly oblivious what time in the small hours he tumbled into the front entry. I'd pet all his stupid relatives, and help his country friends to 'beat down' the city shop-keepers' prices. I'd frown at all offers of 'pin money.' I'd let him sit and 'smoke' in my face till I was as brown as a herring, and my eyes looked as if they were bound with pink tape; and I'd invite that widow Delilah Wilkins to dinner, and run out to do some shopping, and stay away till tea-time. Why! there's nothing I _wouldn't_ do for him--he might have _knocked me down with a feather_, after such a piece of magnanimity. That 'Levins Clough' could stand no more chance than a woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapping at an iceberg."

LXXVII.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE ANGRY.

"'When you are angry take three breaths before you speak.'

"I couldn't do it, said Mrs. Penlimmon. Long before that time I should be as placid as an oyster. 'Three breaths!' I could double Cape Horn in that time. I'm telegraphic wire; if I had to stop to reflect, I should never be saucy. I can't hold anger any more than an April sky can retain showers; the first thing I know, the sun is s.h.i.+ning. You may laugh, but that's better than one of your foggy dispositions, drizzling drops of discomfort a month on a stretch; no computing whether you'll have anything but gray clouds overhead the rest of your life. No; a good heavy clap of thunder for me--a lightning flash; then a bright blue sky and a clear atmosphere, and I am ready for the first flower that springs up in my path.

"'Three breaths!' how absurd! as if people, when they get excited, ever _have_ any breath, or if they have are conscious of it. I should like to see the Solomon who got off that sage maxim. I should like better still, to give him an opportunity to test his own theory! It's very refres.h.i.+ng to see how good people can be, when they have no temptation to sin; how they can sit down and make a code of laws for the world in general and sinners in particular.

"'Three breaths!' I wouldn't give a three-cent piece for anybody who is that long about anything. The days of stage coaches have gone by.

If you ever noticed it, n.o.body pa.s.ses muster now but comets, locomotives, and telegraph wires. Our forefathers and foremothers would have to hold the hair on their heads if they should wake up in 1855. They'd be as crazy as a cat in a shower bath, at all our whizzing and rus.h.i.+ng. Nice old snails! it's a question with me whether I should have crept on at their pace if I had been a cotemporary.

Christopher Columbus would have discovered the New World much quicker than he did had I been at his elbow."

LXXVIII.

THE EARLY BLIGHT.--BY f.a.n.n.y FERN.

"'As Love's wild prayer, dissolved in air, Her woman's heart gave way,-- But the sin forgiven, by Christ in Heaven-- By man is curs't alway.'

"'Oh, _do not_ speak so harshly of her, Aunt Nancy! If you could see how sorrowfully she looks upon that beautiful boy--how she starts at the sound of a strange voice--how hopelessly she sits with her large eyes fixed upon the ground, hour after hour,--so young and so beautiful, too!'

"'Yes, yes,' broke in Aunt Nancy; 'I dare say! they're _always_ beautiful. I tell you there's no mercy for her in _this_ world, or _t'other_, as I knows on,' and the indignant spinster drew up her long crane neck. 'Why didn't she behave as she _oughter_? Did you ever hear a word said against _me_? Beauty is nothing; behavior is everything.'

"'But Aunt Nancy----'

"'Don't 'but' _me_; I tell you I won't have anything to do with her--such a thing as _she_ is!'

"What crus.h.i.+ng words to fall upon a broken heart! for Leila's quick ear had caught them. Her features grew rigid and pallid, and little Rudolph, frightened at their expression, climbed timidly to her lap.

"Leila's heart was full of bitterness--those cruel words yet rang in her ears; and, for once, she pushed him rudely from her,--then the _mother_ triumphed; and drawing him with a caressing motion to her breast, she sobbed--'_G.o.d pity us!_'

"Those were long, weary hours, she pa.s.sed in that solitary chamber, in vacant listlessness, with her head leaning upon her hand, till poor little Rudolph fell asleep amid his toys, from very weariness,--then she would rouse herself, tie on his little hat, and wander out into the green fields--on, on--as if trying to be rid of _herself_! But there was no healing balm in nature. Just such sunny days, alas! had dawned on her before, when her sky was pure and cloudless. She accepted mechanically the little field-flowers that Rudolph placed in her hand. Those eyes! that brow! those curling chestnut locks! No _father's_ hand was there to bless them!

"Poor Leila! Her own s.e.x pa.s.s by on the other side _contemptuously_--and the _other_? (_G.o.d save her!_) She shrinks nervously from their bold glance of admiration, and repels scornfully any attempt at acquaintance. There is no bright spot in the future, save the hope that the false promise made in G.o.d's hearing to the unprotected orphan will yet be redeemed.

"Little Rudolph's cheeks crimson with fever. Leila says to herself, "tis better he should die, than live to blush at his mother's name,'

and then she shudders,--for where on the desolate earth will she find so loving a heart as his is now?

"The young physician knows her history. Leila answers his questions with a cold dignity; but he is generous and n.o.ble-hearted, and would scorn to remind her by word or glance of her sad secret. Fresh flowers lay between Rudolph's thin fingers, and delicacies unattainable by Leila, are daily offerings. Rudolph will need them no longer! Leila sheds no tear, as the look that comes but once, pa.s.ses over that waxen face! But she trembles, and shudders, as if the last gleam of hope was shut out by the closing of that coffin-lid. Even 'Aunt Nancy'

condescends to pity her, (at a distance!)

"Oh, shame! that woman's heart should be so relentlessly unforgiving to her erring sister! Who shall say, in the absence of a _mother's_ angel watch, and with a _warmer heart_ than the one that now sits in cold judgment upon her, Leila's sin might have been _yours_? Oh,

'Love her still!

Let no harsh, cold word, Man! from lips of thine be heard!

Woman! with no lifted eye Mock thou her deep misery; Weep ye--tears, _tears alone_ For our world-forsaken one,-- Love her still!'

"Lelia sits alone--pale and pa.s.sive. The young physician approaches her respectfully. Leila looks at him with amazed wonder, as he would raise her to the dignity of a '_wife_.' Tears of happy pride fall from her eyes, at his generous avowal; and so she thanks him with a full heart, but says, sadly, '_her heart is with Rudolph's father!_' and Leila is left _again_ to her own sad thoughts. She wanders listlessly about the house--she takes up a newspaper, (scarcely heeding what she reads;) she glances at the list of 'deaths,'--it is there!--_his name_! and it signs the death warrant of his _last_ victim! Leila falls heavily to the floor. _Her heart is as still as his own!_ Betrayer and betrayed shall meet again; and _G.o.d_ shall be the _Judge_!"

LXXIX.

THERE'S ROOM ENOUGH FOR ALL.

"'What need of all this fuss and strife, Each warring with his brother?

Why should we in the crowd of life, Keep trampling down each other?

Is there no goal that can be won, Without a fight to gain it?

No other way of getting on, But grappling to obtain it?'

"No, my gracious! no! We have to fight like ten thousand; contest every inch of ground; and if you get one step forward of your neighbor, envy and malice will be on your skirts in a twinkling; trying to hoist themselves up, or pull you down--they are not particular which. For every laurel you earn, you will gain the everlasting hate of every distanced compet.i.tor; not that they won't smile and congratulate you; but Judas left a few descendants, when he 'went to his own place.'

"'Room enough for all?' _not by a hemisphere!_ For every crumb Dame Fortune tosses out of her lap, there's a regular pitched battle and no place to fight in. Well, if your blood leaps through your veins as it ought, instead of putting your thumbs in your mouth and whining about it, you'll just set your teeth together, make a plunge for _your share_ of the spoils, and _hold on to it after you get it_, too! My gracious, yes. Peace, and love, and harmony are very pretty things, no doubt, but you don't see 'em often in this lat.i.tude and longitude.

"Well, there's no help for it. You just go p.u.s.s.y-cat-ting through creation once, with velvet claws, and see what _lean ribs_ you'll have to show for it! At the mercy of every little pinafore ruffian that knows English enough to cry 'scat!'

"If you earn anything beside cat-_nips_, I hope you'll come and tell me! No--I'm persuaded it's no use to talk through your nose, and look sanctified; male and female Moses-es always get imposed upon. Besides, you heathen, if you look in Genesis, you'll find yourself a fore-ordained victim--no dodging the curse. 'By the sweat of your brow,' you must earn your bread and b.u.t.ter. The old serpent who fetched it on us, knows we are all fulfilling our destiny! Eve wasn't smart about that apple business. I know forty ways _I_ could have fixed him--without burning my fingers, either. It makes me quite frantic to think I lost such a prime chance to circ.u.mvent the old sinner!"