The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865

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"What said Paul? 'I would to God that not only thou, but also all that
hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, _except
these bonds_.' _'Except these bonds'!_" he repeated, striking the Bible.
"Can you, my hearers,--can you say, with Paul, 'Would that all were as I
am, _except these bonds_'?"

A point which seemed for a moment so personal to himself, that Ducklow
was filled with confusion, and would certainly have stammered out some
foolish answer, had not the preacher passed on to other themes. As it
was, Ducklow contented himself with glancing around to see if the
congregation was looking at him, and carelessly passing his hand across
his breast-pocket to make sure the bonds were still there.

Early the next morning, the old mare was harnessed, and Taddy's adopted
parents set out to visit their daughter,--Mrs. Ducklow having postponed
her washing for the purpose. It was afternoon when they arrived at their
journey's end. Laura received them joyfully, but Josiah was not expected
home until evening. Mr. Ducklow put the old mare in the barn, and fed
her, and then went in to dinner, feeling very comfortable indeed.

"Josiah's got a nice place here. That's about as slick a little barn as
ever I see. Always does me good to come over here and see you gittin'
along so nicely, Laury."

"I wish you'd come oftener, then," said Laura.

"Wal, it's hard leavin' home, ye know. Have to git one of the Atkins
boys to come and sleep with Taddy the night we're away."

"We shouldn't have come to-day, if 't hadn't been for me," remarked Mrs.
Ducklow. "Says I to your father, says I, 'I feel as if I wanted to go
over and see Laury; it seems an age since I've seen her,' says I. 'Wal,'
says he, 's'pos'n' we go!' says he. That was only last Saturday; and
this morning we started."

"And it's no fool of a job to make the journey with the old mare!" said
Ducklow.

"Why don't you drive a better horse?" said Laura, whose pride was always
touched when her parents came to visit her with the old mare and the
one-horse wagon.

"Oh, she answers my purpose. Hossflesh is high, Laury. Have to
economize, these times."

"I'm sure there's no need of your economizing!" exclaimed Laura, leading
the way to the dining-room. "Why don't you use your money, and have the
good of it?"

"So I tell him," said Mrs. Ducklow, faintly.--"Why, Laury! I didn't want
you to be to so much trouble to git dinner jest for us! A bite would
have answered. Do see, father!"

At evening Josiah came home; and it was not until then that Ducklow
mentioned the subject which was foremost in his thoughts.

"What do ye think o' Gov'ment bonds, Josiah?" he incidentally inquired,
after supper.

"First-rate!" said Josiah.

"About as safe as anything, a'n't they?" said Ducklow, encouraged.

"Safe?" cried Josiah. "Just look at the resources of this country!
Nobody has begun yet to appreciate the power and undeveloped wealth of
these United States. It's a big rebellion, I know; but we're going to
put it down. It'll leave us a big debt, very sure; but we handle it now
easy as that child lifts that stool. It makes him grunt and stagger a
little, not because he isn't strong enough for it, but because he don't
understand his own strength, or how to use it: he'll have twice the
strength, and know just how to apply it, in a little while. Just so with
this country. It makes me laugh to bear folks talk about repudiation and
bankruptcy."

"But s'pos'n' we do put down the Rebellion, and the States come back:
then what's to hender the South, and Secesh sympathizers in the North,
from j'inin' together and votin' that the debt sha'n't be paid?"

"Don't you worry about that! Do ye suppose we're going to be such fools
as to give the Rebels, after we've whipped 'em, the same political power
they had before the war? Not by a long chalk! Sooner than that, we'll
put the ballot into the hands of the freedmen. They're our friends.
They've fought on the right side, and they'll vote on the right side. I
tell ye, spite of all the prejudice there is against black skins, we
a'n't such a nation of ninnies as to give up all we're fighting for, and
leave our best friends and allies, not to speak of our own interests, in
the hands of our enemies."

"You consider Gov'ments a good investment, then, do ye?" said Ducklow,
growing radiant.

"I do, decidedly,--the very best. Besides, you help the Government; and
that's no small consideration."

"So I thought. But how is it about the cowpon bonds? A'n't they rather
ticklish property to have in the house?"

"Well, I don't know. Think how many years you'll keep old bills and
documents and never dream of such a thing as losing them! There's not a
bit more danger with the bonds. I shouldn't want to carry 'em around
with me, to any great amount,--though I did once carry three
thousand-dollar bonds in my pocket for a week. I didn't mind it."

"Curi's!" said Ducklow: "I've got three thousan'-dollar bonds in my
pocket this minute!"

"Well, it's so much good property," said Josiah, appearing not at all
surprised at the circumstance.

"Seems to me, though, if I had a safe, as you have, I should lock 'em up
in it."

"I was travelling that week. I locked 'em up pretty soon after I got
home, though."

"Suppose," said Ducklow, as if the thought had but just occurred to
him,--"suppose you put my bonds into your safe: I shall feel easier."

"Of course," replied Josiah. "I'll keep 'em for you, if you like."

"It will be an accommodation. They'll be safe, will they?"

"Safe as mine are; safe as anybody's: I'll insure 'em for twenty-five
cents."

Ducklow was happy. Mrs. Ducklow was happy. She took her husband's coat,
and with a pair of scissors cut the threads that stitched the envelope
to the pocket.

"Have you torn off the May coupons?" asked Josiah.

"No."

"Well, you'd better. They'll be payable now soon; and if you take them,
you won't have to touch the bonds again till the interest on the
November coupons is due."

"A good idea!" said Ducklow.

He took the envelope, untied the tape, and removed its contents.
Suddenly the glow of comfort, the gleam of satisfaction, faded from his
countenance.

"Hello! What ye got there?" cried Josiah.

"Why, father! massy sakes!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow.

As for Ducklow himself, he could not utter a word; but, dumb with
consternation, he looked again in the envelope, and opened and turned
inside out, and shook, with trembling hands, its astonishing contents.
The bonds were not there: they had been stolen, and three copies of the
"Sunday Visitor" had been inserted in their place.

* * * * *

Very early on the following morning a dismal-faced middle-aged couple
might have been seen riding away from Josiah's house. It was the
Ducklows returning home, after their fruitless, their worse than
fruitless, journey. No entreaties could prevail upon them to prolong
their visit. It was with difficulty even that they had been prevented
from setting off immediately on the discovery of their loss, and
travelling all night, in their impatience to get upon the track of the
missing bonds.

"There'll be not the least use in going to-night," Josiah had said. "If
they were stolen at the bank, you can't do anything about it till
to-morrow. And even if they were taken from your own house, I don't see
what's to be gained now by hurrying back. It isn't probable you'll ever
see 'em again, and you may just as well take it easy,--go to bed and
sleep on it, and get a fresh start in the morning."

So, much against their inclination, the unfortunate owners of the
abstracted bonds retired to the luxurious chamber Laura gave them, and
lay awake all night, groaning and sighing, wondering and surmising, and
(I regret to add) blaming each other. So true it is, that "modern
conveniences," hot and cold water all over the house, a pier-glass, and
the most magnificently canopied couch, avail nothing to give
tranquillity to the harassed mind. Hitherto the Ducklows had felt great
satisfaction in the style their daughter, by her marriage, was enabled
to support. To brag of her nice house and furniture and two servants was
almost as good as possessing them. Remembering her rich dining-room and
silver service and porcelain, they were proud. Such things were enough
for the honor of the family; and, asking nothing for themselves, they
slept well in their humblest of bed-chambers, and sipped their tea
contentedly out of clumsy earthen. But that night the boasted style in
which their "darter" lived was less appreciated than formerly: fashion
and splendor were no longer a consolation.

"If we had only given the three thousan' dollars to Reuben!" said
Ducklow, driving homewards with a countenance as long as his whip-lash.
"'Twould have jest set him up, and been some compensation for his
sufferin's and losses goin' to the war."

"Wal, I had no objections," replied Mrs. Ducklow. "I always thought he
ought to have the money eventooally. And, as Miss Beswick said, no doubt
it would 'a' been ten times the comfort to him now it would be a number
o' years from now. But you didn't seem willing."

"I don't know! 'twas you that wasn't willin'!"

And they expatiated on Reuben's merits, and their benevolent intentions
towards him, and, in imagination, endowed him with the price of the
bonds over and over again: so easy is it to be generous with lost money!

"But it's no use talkin'!" said Ducklow. "I've not the least idee we
shall ever see the color o' them bonds again. If they was stole to the
bank, I can't prove anything."

"It does seem strange to me," Mrs. Ducklow replied, "that you should
have had no more gumption than to trust the bonds with strangers, when
they told you in so many words they wouldn't be responsible."

"If you have flung that in my teeth once, you have fifty times!" And
Ducklow lashed the old mare, as if she, and not Mrs. Ducklow, had
exasperated him.

"Wal," said the lady, "I don't see how we're going to work to find 'em,
now they're lost, without making inquiries; and we can't make inquiries
without letting it be known we had bought."

"I been thinkin' about that," said her husband. "Oh, dear!" with a
groan; "I wish the pesky cowpon bonds had never been invented!"

They drove first to the bank, where they were of course told that the
envelope had not been untied there. "Besides, it was sealed, wasn't
it?" said the cashier. "Indeed!" He expressed great surprise, when
informed that it was not. "It should have been: I supposed any child
would know enough to look out for that!"

And this was all the consolation Ducklow could obtain.

"Just as I expected," said Mrs. Ducklow, as they resumed their journey.
"I just as much believe that man stole your bonds as that you trusted
'em in his hands in an unsealed wrapper! Beats all, how you could be so
careless!"

"Wal, wal! I s'pose I never shall hear the last on 't!"

And again the poor old mare had to suffer for Mrs. Ducklow's offences.

They had but one hope now,--that perhaps Taddy had tampered with the
envelope, and that the bonds might be found somewhere about the house.
But this hope was quickly extinguished on their arrival. Taddy, being
accused, protested his innocence with a vehemence which convinced even
Mr. Ducklow that the cashier was probably the guilty party.

"Unless," said he, brandishing the rattan, "somebody got into the house
that morning when the little scamp run off to ride with the minister!"

"Oh, don't lick me for that! I've been licked for that once; ha'n't I,
Ma Ducklow?" shrieked Taddy.

The house was searched in vain. No clew to the purloined securities
could be obtained,--the copies of the "Sunday Visitor," which had been
substituted for them, affording not the least; for that valuable little
paper was found in almost every household, except Ducklow's.

"I don't see any way left but to advertise, as Josiah said," remarked
the farmer, with a deep sigh of despondency.

"And that'll bring it all out!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow. "If you only
hadn't been so imprudent!"

"Wal, wal!" said Ducklow, cutting her short.

Before resorting to public measures for the recovery of the stolen
property, it was deemed expedient to acquaint their friends with their
loss in a private way. The next day, accordingly, they went to pay
Reuben a visit. It was a very different meeting from that which took
place a few mornings before. The returned soldier had gained in health,
but not in spirits. The rapture of reaching home once more, the flush of
hope and happiness, had passed away with the visitors who had flocked to
offer their congratulations. He had had time to reflect: he had reached
home, indeed; but now every moment reminded him how soon that home was
to be taken from him. He looked at his wife and children, and clenched
his teeth hard to stifle the emotions that arose at the thought of their
future. The sweet serenity, the faith and patience and cheerfulness,
which never ceased to illumine Sophronia's face as she moved about the
house, pursuing her daily tasks, and tenderly waiting upon him, deepened
at once his love and his solicitude. He was watching her thus when the
Ducklows entered with countenances mournful as the grave.

"How are you gittin' along, Reuben?" said Ducklow, while his wife
murmured a solemn "good morning" to Sophronia.

"I am doing well enough. Don't be at all concerned about me! It a'n't
pleasant to lie here, and feel it may be months, months, before I'm able
to be about my business; but I wouldn't mind it,--I could stand it
first-rate,--I could stand anything, anything, but to see her working
her life out for me and the children! To no purpose, either; that's the
worst of it. We shall have to lose this place, spite of fate!"

"Oh, Reuben!" said Sophronia, hastening to him, and laying her soothing
hands upon his hot forehead; "why won't you stop thinking about that? Do
try to have more faith! We shall be taken care of, I'm sure!"

"If I had three thousand dollars,--yes, or even two,--then I'd have
faith!" said Reuben. "Miss Beswick has proposed to send a
subscription-paper around town for us; but I'd rather die than have it
done. Besides, nothing near that amount could be raised, I'm confident.
You needn't groan so, Pa Ducklow, for I a'n't hinting at you. I don't
expect you to help me out of my trouble. If you had felt called upon to
do it, you'd have done it before now; and I don't ask, I don't beg of
any man!" added the soldier, proudly.

"That's right; I like your sperit!" said the miserable Ducklow. "But I
was sighing to think of something,--something you haven't known anything
about, Reuben."

"Yes, Reuben, we should have helped you," said Mrs. Ducklow, "and did,
did take steps towards it"----

"In fact," resumed Ducklow, "you've met with a great misfortin', Reuben.
Unbeknown to yourself, you've met with a great misfortin'! Yer Ma
Ducklow knows."

"Yes, Reuben, the very day you came home, your Pa Ducklow made an
investment for your benefit. We didn't mention it,--you know I wouldn't
own up to it, though I didn't exactly say the contrary, the morning we
was over here"----

"Because," said Ducklow, as she faltered, "we wanted to surprise you; we
was keepin' it a secret till the right time, then we was goin' to make
it a pleasant surprise to ye."

"What in the name of common-sense are you talking about?" cried Reuben,
looking from one to the other of the wretched, prevaricating pair.

"Cowpon bonds!" groaned Ducklow. "Three thousan'-dollar cowpon bonds!
The money had been lent, but I wanted to make a good investment for you,
and I thought there was nothin' so good as Gov'ments"----

"That's all right," said Reuben. "Only, if you had money to invest for
my benefit, I should have preferred to pay off the mortgage the first
thing."

"Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow; "and you could have turned the bonds
right in, if you had so chosen, like so much cash. Or you could have
drawed your interest on the bonds in gold, and paid the interest on your
mortgage in currency, and made so much, as I rather thought you would."

"But the bonds?" eagerly demanded Reuben, with trembling hopes, just as
Miss Beswick, with her shawl over her head, entered the room.

"We was jest telling about our loss, Reuben's loss," said Mrs. Ducklow
in a manner which betrayed no little anxiety to conciliate that terrible
woman.

"Very well! don't let me interrupt." And Miss Beswick, slipping the
shawl from her head, sat down.

Her presence, stiff and prim and sarcastic, did not tend in the least to
relieve Mr. Ducklow from the natural embarrassment he felt in giving his
version of Reuben's loss. However, assisted occasionally by a judicious
remark thrown in by Mrs. Ducklow, he succeeded in telling a sufficiently
plausible and candid-seeming story.

"I see! I see!" said Reuben, who had listened with astonishment and pain
to the narrative. "You had kinder intentions towards me than I gave you
credit for. Forgive me, if I wronged you!" He pressed the hand of his
adopted father, and thanked him from a heart filled with gratitude and
trouble. "But don't feel so bad about it. You did what you thought best
I can only say, the fates are against me."

"Hem!" coughing, Miss Beswick stretched up her long neck and cleared her
throat "So them bonds you had bought for Reuben was in the house the
very night I called!"

"Yes, Miss Beswick," replied Mrs. Ducklow; "and that's what made it so
uncomfortable to us to have you talk the way you did."

"Hem!" The neck was stretched up still farther than before, and the
redoubtable throat cleared again. "'Twas too bad! Ye ought to have told
me. You'd actooally bought the bonds,--bought 'em for Reuben, had ye?"

"Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow.

"To be sure!" said Mrs. Ducklow.

"We designed 'em for his benefit, a surprise, when the right time
come," said both together.

"Hem! well!" (It was evident that the Beswick was clearing her decks for
action.) "When the right time come! yes! That right time wasn't
somethin' indefinite, in the fur futur', of course! Yer losin' the bonds
didn't hurry up yer benevolence the least grain, I s'pose! Hem! let in
them boys, Sophrony!"

Sophronia opened the door, and in walked Master Dick Atkins, (son of the
brush-burner,) followed, not without reluctance and concern, by Master
Taddy.

"Thaddeus! what you here for?" demanded the adopted parents.

"Because I said so," remarked Miss Beswick, arbitrarily. "Step along,
boys, step along. Hold up yer head, Taddy, for ye a'n't goin' to be hurt
while I'm around. Take yer fists out o' yer eyes, and stop blubberin'.
Mr. Ducklow, that boy knows somethin' about Reuben's cowpon bonds."

"Thaddeus!" ejaculated both Ducklows at once, "did you touch them
bonds?"

"Didn't know what they was!" whimpered Taddy.

"Did you take them?" And the female Ducklow grasped his shoulder.

"Hands off, if you please!" remarked Miss Beswick, with frightfully
gleaming courtesy. "I told him, if he'd be a good boy, and come along
with Richard, and tell the truth, he shouldn't be hurt. _If_ you
please," she repeated, with a majestic nod; and Mrs. Ducklow took her
hands off.

"Where are they now? where are they?" cried Ducklow, rushing headlong to
the main question.

"Don't know," said Taddy.

"Don't know? you villain!" And Ducklow was rising in wrath. But Miss
Beswick put up her hand deprecatingly.

"If _you_ please!" she said, with grim civility; and Ducklow sank down
again.

"What did you do with 'em? what did you want of 'em?" said Mrs. Ducklow,
with difficulty restraining an impulse to wring his neck.

"To cover my kite," confessed the miserable Taddy.

"Cover your kite! your kite!" A chorus of groans from the Ducklows.
"Didn't you know no better?"

"Didn't think you'd care," said Taddy. "I had some newspapers Dick give
me to cover it; but I thought them things 'u'd be pootier. So I took
'em, and put the newspapers in the wrapper."

"Did ye cover yer kite?"

"No. When I found out you cared so much about 'em, I dars'n't; I was
afraid you'd see 'em."

"Then what _did_ you do with 'em?"

"When you was away, Dick come over to sleep with me, and I--I sold 'em
to him."

"Sold 'em to Dick!"

"Yes," spoke up Dick, stoutly, "for six marbles, and one was a
bull's-eye, and one agate, and two alleys. Then, when you come home and
made such a fuss, he wanted 'em ag'in. But he wouldn't give me back but
four, and I wa'n't going to agree to no such nonsense as that."

"I'd lost the bull's-eye and one common," whined Taddy.

"But the bonds! did you destroy 'em?"

"Likely I'd destroy 'em, after I'd paid six marbles for 'em!" said Dick.
"I wanted 'em to cover _my_ kite with."

"Cover _your_--oh! then _you_'ve made a kite of 'em?" said Ducklow.

"Well, I was going to, when Aunt Beswick ketched me at it. She made me
tell where I got 'em, and took me over to your house jest now; and Taddy
said you was over here, and so she put ahead, and made us follow her."

Again, in an agony of impatience, Ducklow demanded to know where the
bonds were at that moment.

"If Taddy'll give me back the marbles," began Master Dick.

"That'll do!" said Miss Beswick, silencing him with a gesture. "Reuben
will give you twenty marbles; for I believe you said they was Reuben's
bonds, Mr. Ducklow?"

"Yes, that is"----stammered the adopted father.

"Eventooally," struck in the adopted mother.

"Now look here! What am I to understand? Be they Reuben's bonds, or be
they not? That's the question!" And there was that in Miss Beswick's
look which said, "If they are not Reuben's, then your eyes shall never
behold them more!"

"Of course they're Reuben's!" "We intended all the while"----"His
benefit"----"To do jest what he pleases with 'em," chorused Pa and Ma
Ducklow.

"Wal! now it's understood! Here, Reuben, are your cowpon bonds!"

And Miss Beswick, drawing them from her bosom, placed the precious
documents, with formal politeness, in the glad soldier's agitated hands.

"Glory!" cried Reuben, assuring himself that they were genuine and real.
"Sophrony, you've got a home! Ruby, Carrie, you've got a home! Miss
Beswick! you angel from the skies! order a bushel and a half of marbles
for Dick, and have the bill sent to me! Oh, Pa Ducklow! you never did a
nobler or more generous thing in your life. These will lift the
mortgage, and leave me a nest-egg besides. Then when I get my back pay,
and my pension, and my health again, we shall be independent."

And the soldier, overcome by his feelings, sank back in the arms of his
wife.

"We always told you we'd do well by ye, you remember?" said the
Ducklows, triumphantly.

The news went abroad. Again congratulations poured in upon the returned
volunteer. Everybody rejoiced in his good fortune,--especially certain
rich ones who had been dreading to see Miss Beswick come round with her
proposed subscription-paper.

Among the rest, the Ducklows rejoiced not the least; for selfishness was
with them, as it is with many, rather a thing of habit than a fault of
the heart. The catastrophe of the bonds broke up that life-long habit,
and revealed good hearts underneath. The consciousness of having done an
act of justice, although by accident, proved very sweet to them: it was
really a fresh sensation; and Reuben and his dear little family, saved
from ruin and distress, happy, thankful, glad, was a sight to their old
eyes such as they had never witnessed before. Not gold itself, in any
quantity, at the highest premium, could have given them so much
satisfaction; and as for coupon bonds, they are not to be mentioned in
the comparison.

"Won't you do well by me some time, too?" teased little Taddy, who
overheard his adopted parents congratulating themselves on having acted
so generously by Reuben. "I don't care for no cowpen bonds, but I do
want a new drum!"

"Yes, yes, my son!" said Ducklow, patting the boy's shoulder.

And the drum was bought.

Taddy was delighted. But he did not know what made the Ducklows so much
happier, so much gentler and kinder, than formerly. Do you?

THE AUTHOR OF "SAUL."[A]

We are not one of those who believe that the manifestation of any
native, vigorous faculty of the mind is dependent upon circumstances. It
is true that education, in its largest sense, modifies development; but
it cannot, to any serious extent, add to, or take from, the power to be
developed. In the lack of encouragement and contemporary appreciation,
certain of the finer faculties may not give forth their full and perfect
fragrance; but the rose is always seen to be a rose, though never a bud
come to flower. The "mute, inglorious Milton" is a pleasant poetic
fiction. Against the "hands that the rod of empire _might_ have swayed"
we have nothing to object, knowing to what sort of hands the said rod
has so often been intrusted.

John Howard Payne once read to us--and it was something of an
infliction--a long manuscript on "The Neglected Geniuses of America,"--a
work which only death, we suspect, prevented him from giving to the
world. There was not one name in the list which had ever before reached
our ears. Nicholas Blauvelt and William Phillips and a number of other
utterly forgotten rhymesters were described and eulogized at length, the
quoted specimens of their poetry proving all the while their admirable
right to the oblivion which Mr. Payne deprecated. They were men of
culture, some of them wealthy, and we could detect no lack of
opportunity in the story of their lives. Had they been mechanics, they
would have planed boards and laid bricks from youth to age. The Ayrshire
ploughman and the Bedford tinker were made of other stuff. Our inference
then was, and still is, that unacknowledged (or at least unmanifested)
genius is no genius at all, and that the lack of sympathy which many
young authors so bitterly lament is a necessary test of their fitness
for their assumed vocation.

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