The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

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But the toothsome time for beef-eaters was undoubtedly in the days of
pleuro-pneumonia. Then the frightened public fled from beef as from the
plague, and all the best cuts were left for the bold. One was tempted to
pray that such pleuro might last for the season, save that the
Commissioners were so costly, and the dear cattle were having an
unusually sanguinary Bull Run. I know what our vegetarian friend, Mr.
Alcott, will say; but he must indulge me in a very small mania, even if
it seem to him a kind of cannibalism; therefore, whatever rhapsodies are
left from bread and potato, let them all be given to good beef. While
the quarrel of round, rump, and sirloin goes on, this let us buy and eat
and reinforce ourselves. In it are poems, powers, and possessions
ineffable. Twenty-five cents a pound, and the strength of the gods in
one's veins! Broil it carefully and rare, then go and toss quoits with
Hercules. In this, ye disconsolate, behold lands, lovers, and virtues in
plenty. It fills and steadies the pulse, and plants the planet plump
under one's feet. "My friend, is he who makes me do what I can," says
the sage. Only beefsteak can come to the rescue. If one were going to a
martyr's fire, of this should he eat, lest he die, not sublimely, with a
fainting body. He would try this steak, and then that stake.

But there is one event that comes alike to all, and that is a holiday
dinner. Even the poor have their plum-pudding days, and all seem to
think that on a Christmas or Thanksgiving Nature suspends her laws and
lets one eat as much as he can. It is quite in the spirit of the
Scottish Lord Cockburn, who, ending a long walk, used to say, "We will
eat a profligate supper,--a supper without regard to discretion or
digestion." Or after the theory of one who ate whatever he pleased,
whenever he pleased, and as much as he pleased, saying, "Oh, if it makes
me sick, I can take medicine. What are the doctors for, if 'tisn't to
cure people?" He did not know how small hope can be gotten from the
doctors, and how those who know best get more and more courage to travel
into places where they are not. There must have been a poor chance for
the Egyptians, who, Herodotus says, had a physician for each part of the
body; so that the human frame would seem to have been a sort of
university, and each of the organs a vacant professorship. In case of
malady, every officer worked away on his own member without regard to
what his medical neighbors were doing. Michelet mentions a fish that has
the power of multiplying stomachs to the number of one hundred and
twenty. Fortunately that power is not man's. Think of dyspepsia with a
hundred and twenty stomachs, and a different doctor for each!

Do not imagine this a plea for the transcendental diet that drove Sydney
Smith to that pathetic sigh, "Ah, I wish they would allow me even the
wing of a roasted butterfly!" But perhaps it would not be amiss to
conjure up a terror-demon from these bodies of ours, so that we should
fear to violate laws with such merciless penalties,--should have none
but well-cooked food, at sensible and systematic hours. Is it strange
that little Miss Bremer, who thought herself of soundest digestion,
after three months of American night-dinners with oysters and preserve,
is at last seen to grasp Dr. Osgood with both hands, exclaiming, in
tears, "Oh, help me!" I want to save you from resembling the great
people of the world after the manner of Dr. Beattie, whose title to
genius was, "Have I not headaches like Pope, vertigo like Swift, gray
hairs like Homer? Do I not wear large shoes for fear of corns like
Virgil, and sometimes complain of sore eyes like Horace?"

Therefore I hope that your H. will make the counting-room conform to
regular mid-day dinner and early tea-time. And let us trust that it will
not have the same fatal result as with King Louis XII., who is said to
have died earlier from changing his dinner-hour in compliment to his
foreign bride.

One can hardly think of late suppers without turning quite away to those
ideal tea-takings of the Wordsworths at Grasmere. "Plain living and high
thinking," was the motto of the philosopher-poet, and that table was
never crowded with viands. One can well believe, that, as De Quincey
said, in the quiet walks after tea the face of the poet "grew solemn and
spiritual as any saint's." But he probably was thinking very high when
he drew a knife from the buttered toast and cut the leaves of a new book
just lent to him!

Quite sombre are the memories of Rydal Mount; but since we are really
alive, let us be lively. Behold me, then, dear M., well turbaned and
aproned, and know that this is our churning-day. You give one of your
gleeful little shrieks, perhaps; but yes, it is true; we live in the
city, take a pint of milk per day, and make butter.

And where is the churn? you suggest. Oh, I extemporize that. It is out
of the question to buy every convenient thing, or purse will run dry and
house overflow. Dr. Kane hints how few dishes it is possible to use; and
the plan is admirable; so one need not buy a churn, but make one out of
a bowl and spoon. Into the bowl goes the cream, into the cream the
spoon, and then I beat, beat, beat, not as one who beateth the air. This
often lasts for two hours or more; it might be said that the cream
remains in chrysalis, and refuses to butterfly! Indeed, there is no
reason why a small bowl of cream shouldn't be as refractory as a wooden
churnful. But when it "won't come," my distress is not at all
proportioned to the size of the bowl.

Still I beat, beat, beat, perspiringly, but resolutely, while it whisks
about, spattering over face, bib, and turban. At length there appear
within it greasy-looking flecks. These increase till the mass thickens,
beats solidly, separates from the milk, and declares itself butter. A
limited quantity, certainly, but I will none the less press it dry,
salt, and make it into cakes as large as a full-blown tea-rose. Each of
these I will stamp, lay on a dapper glass cup-plate, and at tea-time
several dear ones in various households will find these astonishing
little pats beside them. Think you not they are genuine love-pats?

This would be a pretty way to serve butter always, did it not remind one
of cheap hotels kept on the European plan, where those small, slushy,
yellow cakes come in with the rolls. A choicer way is to form it into
acorns or strawberries,--though I don't in the least know how it is
done,--placing them all together on a plate and serving one to each at
the table. This dainty way, however, would hardly make a bad article
good, and no one would crave a berry of ancient firkin butter. For, as
trivial a matter as it seems, this single condiment of food, one has
only to encounter it in a strong, cheesy state to feel it among the most
important things in the _cuisine_. Then one suddenly discovers that
butter is in everything. Eating becomes intolerable, living dwindles
into dyspepsia, and finally one is tempted to exclaim with a certain
epicure, "I wish I were under the sod! There's no lump butter in the
market!"

It is related of Apicius, who lived at Rome, that he ate very large
shrimps; but hearing that those of Greece were larger, he straightway
sailed for that coast without losing a day. He met a great storm and
much danger; but on arriving, the fishermen brought him of their best.
Apicius shook his head.

"Have you never any larger shrimps?"

"No, Seignior, never!"

At which, rubbing his hands with delight, he ordered the captain to sail
back at once, saying,--

"I have left some at home larger than these, and they will be spoiled,
if the wind is not in our favor."

We will not carry our dilletantism so far as this, nor let it carry us
so far; still we are glad not to be driven to the expedient of the
Syrians, whose only butter is the fat procured from the tails of their
sheep,--which is literally being reduced to extremities.

By the way, something quite remarkable occurred in my first churning. I
began with one cup of cream and ended with a cup of butter and a full
cup of buttermilk! This law of expansion is paralleled only by that of
contraction, as shown to the farmer who took a brimming pail of dinner
to the sty; and after the little pig had eaten it all, the farmer put
him into the pail, and had room for another half of a pig beside.

* * * * *

But, dear M., it is hardly two moons since the bridal trunks were taken
from our hall, and you went away with the friend. You have scarcely been
domesticated long enough to see that bright tins bake badly, and that
one must crucify her pride by allowing them to blacken; yet so soon do I
overwhelm you with culinary suggestions. I am distressed to remember
them. But you must forgive and smile me into peacefulness again. And be
not discouraged, little housewife! It may take years of attention to
excel in bread-making, some skill even for boiling potatoes, and
common-sense for everything; but stand steadily beside your servants,
and watch their processes patiently. Take notes, experiment, amend, and
if there be failure, discover the reason; then it need not happen again.

And despite the difficulties of the practical, you and H. will not
slight the ideal. Love the work you are doing and must do; but when it
is done, oh, train the rose-vines over your door!

THE PEACE AUTUMN.

Thank God for rest, where none molest,
And none can make afraid,--
For Peace that sits as Plenty's guest,
Beneath the homestead shade!

Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge,
The negro's broken chains,
And beat them at the blacksmith's forge
To ploughshares for our plains.

Alike henceforth our hills of snow,
And vales where cotton flowers;
All streams that flow, all winds that blow,
Are Freedom's motive-powers.

Henceforth to Labor's chivalry
Be knightly honors paid;
For nobler than the sword's shall be
The sickle's accolade.

Build up an altar to the Lord,
O grateful hearts of ours!
And shape it of the greenest sward
That ever drank the showers.

Lay all the bloom of gardens there,
And there the orchard fruits;
Bring golden grain from sun and air,
From earth her goodly roots.

There let our banners droop and flow,
The stars uprise and fall;
Our roll of martyrs, sad and slow,
Let sighing breezes call.

Their names let hands of horn and tan
And rough-shod feet applaud,
Who died to make the slave a man,
And link with toil reward.

There let the common heart keep time
To such an anthem sung,
As never swelled on poet's rhyme,
Or thrilled on singer's tongue.

Song of our burden and relief
Of peace and long annoy;
The passion of our mighty grief
And our exceeding joy!

A song of praise to Him who filled
The harvests sown in tears,
And gave each field a double yield
To feed our battle-years!

A song of faith that trusts the end
To match the good begun,
Nor doubts the power of Love to blend
The hearts of men as one!

DOCTOR JOHNS.

XXXVII.

Meantime Reuben was gaining, month by month, in a knowledge of the
world,--at least of such portion of it as came within the range of his
vision in New York. He imagined it, indeed, a very large portion, and
took airs upon himself in consequence. He thought with due commiseration
of the humble people of Ashfield. He wonders how he could have tolerated
so long their simple ways. The Eagle Tavern, with its creaking
sign-board, does not loom so largely as it once did upon the horizon of
his thought. That he should ever have trembled as a lad at walking up to
the little corner bar, in company with Phil! And as for Nat Boody, whose
stories he once listened to admiringly, what a scrubby personage he has
become in his eye! Fighting-dogs, indeed! "Scamp" would be nothing to
what he has seen a score of times in the city!

He has put Phil through some of the "sights": for that great lout of a
country lad (as Reuben could not help counting him, though he liked his
big, honest heart for all that) had found him out, when he came to New
York to take ship for the West Indies.

"I say, Phil," Reuben had said, as he marched his old schoolmate up
Broadway, "it's rather a touch beyond Ashfield, this, isn't it? How do
you think Old Boody's tavern and sign-board would look along here?"

And Phil laughed, quietly.

"I should like to see old Deacon Tourtelot," continued Reuben, "with
Huldy on his arm, sloping down Broadway. Wouldn't the old people stare?"

"I guess they would," Phil said, demurely.

"I wonder if they'd knock off at sundown Saturday night," continued
Reuben, mockingly.

And his tone somehow hurt Phil, who had the memories of the old home--a
very dear one to him--fresh upon him.

"And I suppose Miss Almiry keeps at her singing?"

"Yes," said Phil, straining a point in favor of his townswoman; "and I
think she sings pretty well."

"Pretty well! By Jove, Phil, you should have been at the Old Park night
before last; you would have heard what _I_ call singing. It would have
stirred up the old folks of Ashfield."

And Phil met it all very seriously. It seemed to him, in his honesty,
that Reuben was wantonly cutting asunder all the ties that once bound
him to the old home. It pained him, moreover, to think--as he did, with
a good deal of restiveness--that his blessed mother, and Rose perhaps,
and the old Squire, his father, were among the Ashfield people at whom
Reuben sneered so glibly. And when he parted with him upon the
dock,--for Reuben had gone down to see him off,--it was with a secret
conviction that their old friendship had come to an end, and that
thenceforth they two could have no sympathies in common.

But in this Phil was by no means wholly right. The talk of Reuben was,
after all, but the ebullition of a city conceit,--a conceit which is apt
to belong to all young men at some period of their novitiate in city
life. He was mainly anxious to impress upon Phil the great gain which he
had made in knowledge of the world in the last few years, and to astound
him with the great difference between his present standpoint and the old
one, when they were boys together on the benches of the Ashfield
meeting-house. We never make such gains, or apparent gains, at any
period of life, it is to be feared, without wishing to demonstrate their
magnitude to the slow coaches we have left behind.

And on the very night after Reuben had parted from Phil, when he came
late to his chamber, dazed with some new scene at the theatre, and his
brain flighty with a cup too much, it may well have happened, that, in
his fevered restlessness, as the clock near by chimed midnight, his
thoughts ran back to that other chamber where once sweet sleep always
greeted him,--to the overhanging boughs that rustled in the evening air
at the window,--to the shaded street that stretched away between the
silent houses,--to the song of the katydids, chattering their noisy
chorus,--to the golden noons when light feet tripped along the village
walks,--to the sunny smiles of Rose,--to the kindly entreaty of good
Mrs. Elderkin,--and more faintly, yet more tenderly, than elsewhere, to
a figure and face far remote, and so glorified by distance that they
seem almost divine, a figure and a face that are somehow associated with
the utterance of his first prayer,--and with the tender vision before
him, he mumbles the same prayer and falls asleep with it upon his lip.

Only on his lip, however,--and the next day, when he steals a half-hour
for a stroll upon Broadway with that dashing girl, Miss Sophie Bowrigg,
(she is really a stylish creature,) he has very little thought of the
dreamy sentiments of the night before, which seemed for the time to keep
his wilder vagaries in subjection, and to kindle aspirations toward a
better life. It is doubtful, even, if he did not indulge in an artful
compliment or two to the dashing Miss Sophie, the point of which lay in
a cleverly covered contrast of herself with the humdrum manners of the
fair ones of Ashfield. Yet, to tell truth, he is not wholly untouched by
certain little rallying, coquettish speeches of Miss Sophie in respect
to Adele, who, in her open, girl-like way, has very likely told the full
story of Reuben's city attentions.

Reuben had, indeed, been piqued by the French girl's reception of his
patronage, and he had been fairly carried off his feet in view of her
easy adaptation to the ways of the city, and of her graceful carriage
under all the toilet equipments which had been lavished upon her, under
the advice of Mrs. Brindlock. A raw boy comes only by long aptitude into
the freedom of a worldly manner; but a girl--most of all a French girl,
in whom the instincts of her race are strong--leaps to such conquest in
a day. Of course he had intimated to Adele no wonder at the change; but
he had thrust a stray glove of hers into his pocket, counting it only a
gallant theft; and there had been days when he had drawn out that little
relic of her visit from its hidden receptacle, and smoothed it upon his
table, and pressed it, very likely, to his lips, in the same way in
which youth of nineteen or twenty are used to treat such feminine tokens
of grace.

It was a dainty glove, to be sure. It conjured up her presence in its
most alluring aspect. The rustle of her silk, the glow of her cheek, the
coyness of her touch, whenever she had dropped that delicate hand on
his, came with the sight of it. He ventures, in a moment of gallant
exuberance, to purchase a half-dozen of the same number, of very
charming tints, (to his eye,) and sends them as a gift to Adele,
saying,--

"I found your stray glove we had a search for in the carriage, but did
not tell of it. I hope these will fit."

"They fit nicely," said Adele, writing back to him,--"so nicely, I may
be tempted to throw another old glove of mine some time in your way."

Miss Eliza Johns was of course delighted with this attention of
Reuben's, and made it the occasion of writing him a long letter, (and
her letters were very rare, by reason of the elaboration she counted
necessary,) in which she set forth the excellence of Adele's character,
her "propriety of speech," her "lady-like deportment," her "cheerful
observance of duty," and her "eminent moral worth," in such terms as
stripped all romance from Reuben's recollection of her, and made him
more than half regret his gallant generosity.

The Doctor writes to him regularly once a fortnight; of which missives
Reuben reads as regularly the last third, containing, as it does
usually, a little home news or casual mention of Miss Rose Elderkin or
of the family circle. The other two thirds, mainly expostulatory, he
skips, only allowing his eye to glance over them, and catch such
scattered admonitions as these:--"Be steadfast in the truth.... Let your
light shine before men.... Be not tempted of the Devil; for if you
resist him, he will flee from you.... The wisdom of this world is
foolishness.... Trust not, my son, in any arm of flesh."

Ah, how much of such good advice had been twisted into tapers for the
lighting of Reuben's cigars! Not because it was absolutely scorned; not
because it was held in contempt, or its giver held in contempt; but
because there was so much of it. If the old gentleman had been in any
imminent bodily peril, it is certain that Reuben would have rushed far
and wide to aid him. It is certain that he loved him; it is certain that
he venerated him; and yet, and yet, (he said to himself,) "I do wish he
would keep this solemn stuff for his sermons. Who cares to read it? Who
cares to hear it, except on Sundays?"

Our good reader will exclaim,--A bad young man! And yet we think our
good readers--nay, our best of readers--have shirked godly counsel over
and over, with very much the same promptitude. We all grow so weary with
the iteration of even the best of truths! we all love youth so much! we
all love the world so much! we all trust to an arm of flesh so much!

Not for a moment did the Doctor believe that his recreant son pondered
wisely and deeply these successive epistles of his. He knew him too well
for that. But for him duty was always duty. "Here a little, and there a
little." It would have pained the old gentleman grievously to know the
full extent of the wickedness of his boy,--to have looked for a moment
into the haunts to which he was beguiled by his companions of the
city,--to have seen his flushed and swollen face after some of those
revels to which Reuben was a party. But the good Doctor was too ignorant
of the world to conceive, even, of larger latitude than an occasional
cigar or a stolen sight at the orgies of the theatre. And when Mr.
Brindlock wrote, as he took occasion to do about this period, regretting
the extravagance of Reuben and the bad associations into which he had
fallen, and urging the Doctor to impress upon him the advantages of
regularity and of promptitude, and to warn him that a very advantageous
business career which was opening upon him would be blighted by his
present habits, the poor gentleman was fairly taken aback.

That even this worldly gentleman, Mr. Brindlock, should take exception
to the courses of his son was a most startling fact. What admonition
could the Doctor add to those which he had addressed to his poor son
fortnightly for years past? Had he not warned him over and over that he
was standing upon slippery places? Had he not unfolded the terrors of
God's wrath upon sinners? Had he not set before him in "line upon line"
the awful truth that his immortal career was at stake? And should he
descend from this ground to plead with him upon the score of his
short-lived worldly career? What were all business prospects, however
they might wane, compared with that dreadful prospect which lies before
him who refuseth godly counsel and hardeneth his heart? Was it not a
fearful confirmation of Satan's reign upon earth, that peril to a
temporal career should serve for warning against criminal excesses, when
the soul's everlasting peril was urged vainly? The Doctor wrote to
Reuben with even more than his usual unction. But he could not bring
himself to warn his boy of the mere blight to his worldly career,--that
was so small a matter! Yet he laid before him in graver terms than he
had ever done before the weight of the judgment of an offended God, and
the fearful retribution that would certainly overtake the ungodly.
Reuben lighted his cigar with the letter, not unfeelingly, but
indifferently, and ventured even upon a blasphemous joke with his
companions.

"It ought to burn," he says, "There's plenty of brimstone in it!"

It would have crazed the minister of Ashfield to have heard the speech.
In his agony of mind he went to consult Squire Elderkin, and laid before
him the dire accounts he had heard.

"Ah, young men will be young men, Doctor. There's time for him to come
out right yet. It's the blood of the old Major; it must have vent."

As the Doctor recalled what he counted his father's godless death, he
shuddered. Presently he talked of summoning his boy home immediately.

"Well, Doctor," said the Squire, meditatively, "there are two sides to
that matter. There are great temptations in the city, to be sure; but if
God puts a man in the way of great temptations, I suppose He gives him
strength to resist them. Isn't that good theology?"

The parson nodded assent.

"We can always resist, if we will, Squire," said he.

"Very good, Doctor. Suppose, now, you bring your boy home; he'll fret
desperately under your long lectures, and with Miss Eliza, and perhaps
run off into deviltries that will make him worse than those of the city.
You must humor him a little, Doctor; touch his pride; there's a fine,
frank spirit at the bottom; give him a good word now and then."

"I know no word so good as prayer," said the Doctor, gravely.

"That's very well, Doctor, very well. Mrs. Elderkin gives him help that
way; and between you and me, Doctor, if any woman's prayers can call
down blessings, I think that little woman's can,"--and the Squire's eyes
fairly flashed with the dew that came into them.

"An estimable lady,--most estimable!" said the Doctor.

"Pray, if you will, Doctor; it's all right; and for my part, I'll drop
him a line, telling him the town feels an ownership in him, and hopes
he'll do us all credit. I think we can bring him out all right."

"Thank you,--thank you, Squire," said the Doctor, with an unusual
warmth.

And he wrought fervently in prayer that night; may-be, too, the hearty
invocation of that good woman, Mrs. Elderkin, joined with his in the
Celestial Presence; and if the kindly letter of the Squire did not rank
with the prayers, we may believe, without hardihood, that the recording
angel took note of it, and gave credit on the account current of human
charities.

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