The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862

'How do you get books from Loring's?' asked a stranger lately of one of the damsels in question.

'By Hiring,' was the reply.

It was a 'goak,' although the querist didn't see it.

    Illinois, Aug. –

The Continental hath many correspondents—among the 'welcomest' of whom we class the one who speaks as followeth from the far West. We have many a good friend and hearty bon compagnon in that same West:

Dear Continental: 'When you have found a day to be idle, be idle for a day'—a charming saying for the indolent, which Willis prefixes to one of his earlier poems, crediting it to a volume of Chinese proverbs; yet, despite this, I am by no means sure as to its origin, for I suspect it is a trick of the trade for authors to charge all absurdities they are ashamed to own, and all fantastic vagaries they are too grave to acknowledge, to the Celestials, who, we are told, go to battle a fan in one hand and an umbrella in the other (a very sensible way too, with an occasional mint julip this warm weather); but, however all that may be, I adopt the saying; and, lazily resting my head, propose, pen in hand, to scratch down for you a chapter of anecdotes. I would rather sit near you, O Meister Karl, this sunny day of the waning June, in some forest nook; and when you had grown weary of talking (not I of listening) and had lit your old time meerschaum, I would tell you the stories, and you might repeat such as amused you to your readers. The first was suggested to me by your Jacksonville correspondent, in the just come July number.

'I, too, am an 'Athenian:'' and my story of a citizen of that be-colleged town is most authentic. The Rev. Mr. S–, former principal of the 'mill,' as certain profane students were wont to name the Seminary, wherein (did you believe the exhibition tickets) our 'daughters' were ground into 'corner-stones' polished after the 'similitude of a palace,' was a man of unusually modest humility, and somewhat absent-minded.

There came to the school, at commencement (no—hold on!—a young student with three hairs on each lip, and about as many ideas in his brains, has told me that was not the word for the 'Anniversary day' of a female school—O scion of the male school, I submit). It was, then, the 'anniversary of 'the mill.'' A clergyman from abroad, of superior abilities, was expected to address the graduating class. Row upon row of white-robed maidens smiled in sly flirtation upon rows of admiring eyes in the audience below. Grave school-trustees, ponderous-browed lawyers, the united clergy (the aforesaid Athens boasts some fifteen churches), and last, but not least, the professors and the 'Prex' of the college, par excellence (for there are some half dozen 'digs' or dignitaries so named in the town), sat in a body near the stage—'invited guests.' Songs were sung—the fleeting joys of earth, the delights of study, the beauty of flowers, the excellence of wisdom, and kindred themes discoursed upon by low-voiced essayists, till the valedictory came; but with Mr. S–, meanwhile, all went not merry as a marriage bell: the expected orator came not, and was sought for in vain; the valedictorian-ess ceased; the parting song was sung; an expectant hum rose from the audience; the blue-ribboned diplomas waited in a wreath of roses. At last, embarrassed and perplexed, the preceptor rose. 'Young ladies,' he began, 'I had expected to see here,' and his glance wandered over the picture-studded, asparagus-wreathed hall, till it rested quietly on the aforementioned body of village dignitaries—then he continued: 'I expected to-day an individual more competent than myself to address to you these parting words, but (with a last anxious glance at the Faculty) that individual I do not now behold.'

Until afterward admonished by his better half, Mr. S– was unconscious of his arrogance, and of the cause of the ill-concealed mirth of the audience.

Rather verbose that anecdote; but, pardon something to the memories of olden times.

It was the same preceptor who, a member of the graduating class having made all her arrangements beforehand, announced, after the usual distribution of prizes, that the highest ever bestowed on a similar occasion was now to be awarded, for diligence and good deportment, to Miss H– H–; whereupon, in the fewest words possible, he performed the marriage ceremony, and gave her—a husband. Encouraging to the juniors, was it not?

A friend of mine, questioning the other day a small boy as to his home playmates and amusements, asked him of the number and age of the children of a neighbor, at whose house there was, unknown to her, a bran new baby. 'Oh,' answered the five year old, with some scorn,'she hasn't got but two, one of 'em's 'bout as big as me, and the other—the other's on'y jest begun.'

A wee little boy, who had a great habit of saying he was frightened at everything, was one day walking with me in the garden, and clung to me suddenly, saying, 'I'se frightened of that sing,' and, looking down, I saw a caterpillar near his foot.

'Oh, no,' said I, reassuringly and somewhat reprovingly, 'Georgie's not frightened at such a little thing!' Five minutes after, we were sitting on the doorsteps, and, wearing a low-necked dress, I felt on my shoulder some stirring creature; it was a caterpillar, and, with the inevitable privileged feminine screech on such occasions, I dashed it off; then, turning, I met the usually grave gray eyes kindling with mischievous triumph: 'Aunty's frightened of a little sing,' says Georgie, with triumphant emphasis on the 'Aunty.'

Another little rogue, a black-eyed 'possible president' of course, when between two and three years, was opening and shutting a door, amusing himself as he watched the sunshine come and go on the walls of the sitting room, streaming through the lattice of a porch beyond. Presently, while holding the door open, a cloud floated over the sun. 'Aunty, aunty,' cried he, as surprised as he was earnest, 'somebody's shutting door up in the sky.'

I was amused, not long ago, at a passage in the letter of an eldest daughter, eight years old, to her absent father: the womanly dignity of her station and the child's sense of justice quite stifled any tendency to sympathetic remarks. 'Johnny,' she wrote, 'has not been very bad, neither can I say he has been very good; he ran away from nurse twice, and once from mamma, who of course did with him as he deserved.'

A correspondent of mine in the army (a whilom contributor of yours, by the way) writes me this:

'After the Corinthian 'skedadle' (the demi-savans (I don't mean Napoleon's in Egypt, but the provinvial editors—in some cases it amounts to the same thing) having proved the word to be Greek, I suppose it is slang no longer), the Tenth Illinois regiment (Dick Wolcott, you know) camped a few miles to the northward, near the woods; and hasty but shady structures were soon reared in front of the officers' tents; but one morning there arose a great wind, and the 'arboresque' screens became rapidly as non est as Jonah's gourd. A group of uniforms stood watching the flying branches. 'Boys,' said Captain M., gravely, as somewhat ruefully his eye follows the vanishing shelter of his own door, 'that's evidently a left bower.' 'The Captain,' Meerschaum adds, 'is rapidly convalescing.' I fancy this enough for one letter.

Two days later.—

I have been keeping these anecdotes for you for some time, and should have sent them earlier; now—it seems almost cruel to laugh since the dark days in Virginia, or to write frivolous nonsense. Yet, I cannot work; and before these lines reach your readers (if they ever do) the sky will, I hope, be clear again, and the regrets I am tempted to utter would be as out of tune as the exultant predictions of a week ago seem now. Far away to the horizon stretch the golden fields of ripened grain; the abundant harvest is at hand: yet a little while ago we heard dismal laments of blighting rains and hostile insects; and many faithless ones ploughed up their verdant wheatfields in despair. May the harvest of a nation's victory come thus, teaching the incredulous faith in the right—but, ah! the lengthened struggle is what I dread, not the end—that cannot fail us.

I wrote you a special, all-to-yourself letter, not long since, which I hope you will have answered before this comes to you. With a thousand kindly wishes, Ever your's—A. W. C.

Yet one page more. Am I not irrepressible? I send you a rhymed fancy. If it has any significance you will, I know, give it place; if not, not. I will be sincerely acquiescent.

A BRIDAL

I ride along the lonely sands,
Where once we rode with clasping hands.

The wild waves sob upon the beach,
As mournful as love's parting speech.

Those cruel waves, close-clasped they hold
My lost love, with his locks of gold.

Here, while the wind blew from the south,
He kissed me with his tender mouth.

Oh, sun of hope, in dark eclipse!
Oh, aching heart, and unkissed lips!

On, on I ride, faster, in vain,
I cannot hush the cry of pain

In my sick soul. But, hark! how clear
That voice of voices fills my ear!

'Why waitest thou beside the sea?
Canst thou not die, and come to me?'

Soul-king, I come! Alas! my need
Was great. Press on, my faithful steed.

Deep, deep into the sea I ride:
There my love's hero waits his bride.

The longing billows of the sea
With happy welcome smile to me.

They touch my foot, they reach my knee:
Darling! they draw me thus to thee.

They kiss thy picture on my heart;
Love of my life! no more we part.

The rushing waters still my breath:
Oh! have we dared to fear thee, Death?

Ebenezer Stibbs died, near Lewisburg, O., a martyr to his country's cause, October 14th, 1862, in the seventy-first year of his age. His death was a violent one, though he fell not upon the field of strife; for many of the soldiers of our country have never been enrolled, never promoted, never praised for their gallantry, but, far away from the tented field, in their lonely homes, are going down to their graves without sound of drum or salute of musket, unnoticed and unknown.

And this brave old man was one of them. Residing for a number of years on a farm with his son, he had long been excused, on account of the infirmities of age, from active service on the farm, and even from the numerous little tasks about the house and barn involved in the care of the family and the stock. His son was drafted, and now, 'who shall look after things about the place?' 'Go,' said the brave old hero, 'and serve your country, and I'll attend to matters here.'

He set about the work in good heart, and seemed likely to succeed admirably; but one day, while pushing some hay over the edge of the mow, he lost his balance, plunged forward, falling a distance of some ten or twelve feet, and, striking his head on the hard threshing floor, was so stunned as to become entirely insensible. A member of the household soon after entered the barn and found him bleeding and helpless. Medical aid was immediately summoned, but he survived his injuries only a couple of hours, and died without speaking a word. When this dreadful war shall have ended, and tall white columns shall spring up like an alabaster forest all over the land, to commemorate the glories of the departed brave, let one, at least, of the noble shafts, without legend or inscription, stand as the representative of those who have fallen in obscurity, like the soldiers cut off in the forest, unnoticed and unknown.

A Buckeye correspondent sends us the following, which is too good to keep:

THE DEACON AND HIS SON

Some years agone, old Deacon S– kept a corner grocery in the village of B–. Deacon S– had a son, who officiated in said grocery. Deacon S– professed to be very pious—so did Deacon S.'s son.