The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 09, July, 1858

Selfish as it was, I cannot say that I felt sorry to return to Jo, who wrote for me in April, urging me to come as soon as I could, for Mr. Waring had fallen from the mill-wall and broken his leg, and the workmen, in their confusion, had carried him to her house, and she wanted me to help her. I learned, on reaching Valley Mills, that the new building on the island had not been completed far enough to resist a heavy freshet, that had swept away part of the first story, where the mortar was not yet hardened; and it was in traversing these wet stones to ascertain the extent of the damage that Mr. Waring had slipped, and, unable to recover his footing, fallen on a heap of stones and received his injury.

My first question to Josephine was, "Where is Mr. Waring's mother?"

"He would not send for her, Sally," said she, "because she is not well, and he feared to startle her."

"H'm!" said I, very curtly.

Josephine looked at me with innocent, grave eyes,—dear, simple child!– and yet, for anybody but herself she would have been sufficiently discerning. This love seemed to have remodelled her nature, to have taken from her all the serpent's wisdom, to have destroyed her common sense, and distorted her view of everything in which Arthur Waring was concerned. She had certainly got on very fast in my absence. I had returned too late.

I had little to do with the care of the invalid; that devolved on Jo; my offers of service were kindly received, but always declined. Nobody could read to him so well as Miss Boyle. Nobody else understood his moods, his humors, his whims; she knew his tastes with ominous exactness. It was she who arranged his meals on the salver with such care and grace, nay, even cooked them at times; for Jo believed, like a rational woman, that intellect and cultivation increase one's capacity for every office,—that a woman of intelligence should be able to excel an ignorant servant in every household duty, by just so much as she excels her in mind. In fact, this was a pleasant life to two persons, but harassing enough for me. Had I been confident of Arthur Waring's integrity, I should have regarded him with friendly and cordial interest; but I had every reason to distrust him. I perceived he had so far insinuated himself into Jo's confidence, that his whole artillery of expressive looks, broken sentences, even caresses, were received by her with entire good faith; but when I asked her seriously if I was to regard Mr. Waring as her lover, she burst into indignant denial, colored scarlet, and was half inclined to be angry with me,—though a certain tremulous key, into which her usually sweet and steady voice broke while she declared he had never spoken to her of love, it was only friendship, witnessed against her that she was apprehensive, sad, perhaps visited with a tinge of that causeless shame which even in a pure and good woman conventionality constrains, when she has loved a man before he says in plain English, "I love you," though every act and look and tone of his may have carried that significance unmistakably for years. Thank God, there is a day of sure judgment coming, when conventions and shields of usage will save no man from the due vengeance of truth upon falsehood, justice upon smooth and plausible duplicity!

In due time Mr. Waring recovered. If there was any change in his manner to Jo, it was too slight to be seen, though it was felt, and was, after all, the carelessness of a person certain of his foothold in her good graces, rather than the evident withdrawal of attention,—which I could have pardoned even then, had it been the result of honest regret for past carelessness, and stern resolution to repair that past. Whatever it was, Jo perceived that her ideal man was become a real man; but, with a tenacity of nature, for which in my fate-telling I had not given her credit, she was as constant to the substance as she had been to the dream; and while she lost both health and spirits in the contemplation of Arthur Waring's fitful and heedless manner toward her, and was evidently pained by the discovery of his selfish and politic traits,—to call them by no harsher name,—it was inexpressibly touching to hear the excuses she made for him, to see the all-shielding love with which she veiled his faults, and kept him as a mother would keep her graceless, yet dearest child from animadversion and reproach.

In the mean time I heard often from Letty,—no good news of her husband, but that her child grew more and more a comfort, that her friends were very kind, and always in a tiny postscript some such phrase as this: "I try to be patient, Sarah," or "I don't scold Harry so much as I did, dear." I hoped for Letty, for she persevered.

That summer we saw less than ever of Mr. Waring; he was very busy at the mill in order that it might be far enough advanced to resist the inevitable spring freshets; and besides, we were absent from the Valley some weeks, endeavoring to recruit Jo's failing health at the sea-side. But this was a vain endeavor; that which sapped the springs of her life was past outward cure. She inherited her father's delicate and unreliable constitution, and a nervous organization, whose worst disease is ever the preying of doubt, anxiety, or regret. As winter drew on, she grew no better; a dim, dreamy abstraction brooded over her. She said to me often, with a vague alarm, "Sally, how far off you seem! Do come nearer!" She ceased to talk when we were alone, her step grew languid, her eye deeper, —and its bright expression, when you roused her, was longer in shooting back into the clouded sphere than ever before. She sat for hours by the window, her lovely head resting on its casement, looking out, always out and away, beyond the hills, into the deep spaces of blue air, past cloud and vapor, to the stars. Sudden noises startled her to an extreme degree; a quick step flushed her cheek with fire and fluttered her breath. How I longed for spring! I hoped all from the delicate ministrations of Nature; though the physician we called gave me no hope of her final recovery. Mr. Waring himself seemed struck with her aspect, and many little signs of friendly interest came from him. As often as he could, he returned to his old haunts; and while the pleasure of his presence and the excitement of his undisguised anxiety wrought on her, Jo became almost her old self for the moment, gay, cheerful, blooming,—alas! with the bloom of feverishness and vain hope.

So spring drew near. The mill was nearly finished. One day in March a warm south-wind "quieted the earth" after a long rain, the river began to stir, its mail of ice to crack and heave under the sun's rays. I persuaded Jo to take a little drive, and once in the carriage the air reanimated her; she rested against me and talked more than I had known her for weeks.

"What a lovely day!" said she; "how balmy the air is! there is such an expression of rest without despair, such calm expectation! I always think of heaven such days, Sally!—they are like the long sob with which a child finishes weeping. Only to think of never more knowing tears!—that is life indeed!"

A keen pang pierced me at the vibration of her voice as she spoke. I thought to soothe her a little, and said, "Heaven can be no more than love, Jo, and we have a great deal of that on earth."

"Do we?" answered she, in a tone of grief just tipped with irony,—and then went on: "I believe you love me, Sally. I would trust you with—my heart, if need were. I think you love me better than any one on earth does."

"I love you enough, dear," said I; more words would have choked me in the utterance.

Soon we turned homeward.

"Tell John to drive down by the river," said Josephine,—"I want to see the new mill."

"But you cannot see it from the road, Jo; the hemlocks stand between."

"Never mind, Sally; I shall just walk through them; don't deny me! I want to see it all again; and perhaps the arbutus is in bloom."

"Not yet, Jo."

"I can get some buds, then; I want to have some just once."

We left the carriage, and on my arm Jo strolled through the little thicket of hemlock-trees, green and fragrant. She seemed unusually strong. I began to hope. After much searching, we found the budded flowers; she loved most of all wild blossoms; no scent breathed from the closed petals; they were not yet kissed by the odor-giving south-wind into life and expression; but Jo looked at them with sad, far-reaching eyes. I think she silently said good-bye to them.

Presently we came out on the steep bank of the river, directly opposite the mill. A heavy timber was thrown across from the shore to the island, on which the workmen from the west side had passed and repassed; it was firm enough for its purpose, but now, wet with the morning's rain, and high above the grinding ice, it seemed a hazardous bridge. As we stood looking over at the new mill, listening to the slight stir within it, apparently the setting to rights by some lingering workman of such odds and ends as remain after finishing the great whole of such a building, suddenly the cool wind, which had shifted to the north, brought on its waft a most portentous roar. We stood still to listen. Nearer and nearer it swelled, crashing and hissing as it approached. Josephine grasped my arm with convulsive energy, and at that instant we perceived Mr. Waring's plaid cap pass an open casement. She turned upon me like a wild creature driven to bay. I looked up-stream;—the ice had gathered in one high barrier mixed with flood-wood and timber, and, bearing above all the uprooted trunk of a huge sycamore, was coming down upon the dam like a battering-ram. Jo gasped. "The river is broken up and Arthur is on the island," said she, in a fearfully suppressed tone, and, swifter than I could think or guess her meaning, she had reached the timber, she was on it,—and with light, untrembling steps half across, when both she and I simultaneously caught sight of Mr. Waring running for dear life to the other and stronger bridge. Jo turned to come back; but the excitement was past that had sustained her; she trembled, she tottered. I ran to meet and aid her. Just then the roots of the great sycamore thundered against the dam; the already heavily pressed structure gave way; with the freed roar of a hurricane, the barrier, the dam, the foot-bridge swept down toward us. She had all but reached the end of the timber,—I stood there to grasp her hand,—when the old tree, whirled down by the torrent, struck the other end of the beam and threw Josephine forward to the bank, dashing her throbbing, panting breast, with all the force of her fall, against the hard ground. I lifted her in my arms. She was white with pain. Presently she opened her eyes and looked up, a flush of rapture glowed all over her face, and then the awful mist of death, gray and rigid, veiled it. Her head dropped on my shoulder; a sharp cry and a rush of scarlet blood passed her lips together; the head lay more heavily,—she was dead. But Arthur Waring never knew how or for what she died!

Five years have passed since that day. Still I live at Nook Cottage; but not alone. Of us three, Josephine is in heaven. Letty is still troubled upon earth; her husband tests her patience and her temper every hour, but both temper and patience are in good training; and if ever Henry Malden is reclaimed, as I begin to see reasons to hope he will be, he will owe it to the continual example and gentle goodness of his wife, who has grown from a petulant, thoughtless girl into a lovely, unselfish, religious woman, a devoted mother and wife, "refined by fire." For me, the last,—whenever now I say, as I used to say, "Three of us," I mean a new three,—Paul, baby, and me; for Jo was not a prophet. Four years ago, while my heart- ache for her was fresh and torturing, a new pastor came to the little village church of Valley Mills. Mr. Lyman was very good; I have seen other men with as fine natural traits, but I have never seen a man or woman so entirely good. He came to me to console me; for he, too, had just lost a sister, and in listening to his story I for a moment forgot my own, as he meant I should. But I did not love him,—no, not till I discovered, months afterward, that he suffered incessantly from ill-health, and was all alone in the world. I was too much a woman to resist such a plea. I pitied him; I tried to take care of him; and when he asked me if I liked the office of sick-nurse, I told him I liked it well enough to wish it were for life; and now, when he wants to light my eyes out of that dreamy expression that tells him I am re-living the past, and thinking of the dead, he tells me, for the sake of the flash that follows, that I offered myself to him! Perhaps I did. But he is well now; the air of the Tunxis hills, and the rest of a quiet life, partly, I hope, good care also, have restored to him his lost health. And I am what Jo said I should have been,—a blessed mother, as well as a happy wife. The baby that lies across my lap has traits that endear her to me doubly,—traits of each of us three cousins: Josephine's hair on her little nestling head, Letty's apple-blossom complexion, and my eyes, except that they are serene when they are not smiling. I ask only of the love that has given me all this unexpected joy, that my little Jo may have one better trait,—her father's heart; a stronger, tenderer, and purer heart than belonged to any one among "Three of us!"

WHAT A WRETCHED WOMAN SAID TO ME

All the broad East was laced with tender rings
Of widening light; the Daybreak shone afar;
Deep in the hollow, 'twixt her fiery wings,
Fluttered the morning star.

A cloud, that through the time of darkness went
With wanton winds, now, heavy-hearted, came
And fell upon the sunshine, penitent,
And burning up with shame.

The grass was wet with dew; the sheep-fields lay
Lapping together far as eye could see;
And the great harvest hung the golden way
Of Nature's charity.

My house was full of comfort; I was propped
With life's delights, all sweet as they could be,
When at my door a wretched woman stopped,
And, weeping, said to me,—

"Its rose-root in youth's seasonable hours
Love in thy bosom set, so blest wert thou;
Hence all the pretty little red-mouthed flowers
That climb and kiss thee now!

"I loved, but I must stifle Nature's cries
With old dry blood, else perish, I was told;
Hence the young light shrunk up within my eyes,
And left them blank and bold.

"I take my deeds, all, bad as they have been,—
The way was dark, the awful pitfall bare;—
In my weak hands, up through the fires of sin,
I hold them for my prayer."

"The thick, tough husk of evil grows about
Each soul that lives," I mused, "but doth it kill?
When the tree rots, the imprisoned wedge falls out,
Rusted, but iron still.

"Shall He who to the daisy has access,
Reaching it down its little lamp of dew
To light it up through earth, do any less,
Last and best work, for you?"

SONGS OF THE SEA

Not Dibdin's; not Barry Cornwall's; not Tom Campbell's; not any of the "Pirate's Serenades" and "I'm afloats!" which appear in the music-shop- windows, illustrated by lithographic vignettes of impossible ships in impracticable positions. These are sung by landsmen yachting in still waters and in sight of green fields, by romantic young ladies in comfortable and unmoving drawing-rooms to the tinkling of Chickering's pianos. What are the songs the sailor sings to the accompaniment of the thrilling shrouds, the booming double-bass of the hollow topsails, and the multitudinous chorus of Ocean? What does the coaster, in his brief walk "three steps and overboard," hum to himself, as he tramps up and down his little deck through the swathing mists of a Bank fog? What sings the cook at the galley-fire in doleful unison with the bubble of his coppers? Surely not songs that exult in the life of the sea. Certainly not, my amateur friend, anything that breathes of mastery over the elements. The sea is a real thing to him. He never is familiar with it, or thinks of it or speaks of it as his slave. It is "a steed that knows his rider," and, like many another steed which the men of the forecastle have mounted, knows that it can throw its rider at pleasure, and the riders know it too. Now and then a sailor will utter some fierce imprecation upon wind or sea, but it is in the impotence of despair, and not in the conscious, boastful mastery which the land-songs attribute to him. What, then, does the sailor sing?—and does he sing at all?

Certainly the sailor sings. Did you ever walk through Ann Street, Boston, or haunt the purlieus of the Fulton Market? and when there did you never espy a huckster's board covered with little slips of printed paper of the size and shape of the bills-of-fare at the Commonwealth Hotel? They are printed on much coarser paper, and are by no means as typographically exact as the aforesaid carte, or as this page of the "Atlantic Monthly," but they are what the sailor sings. I know they are there, for I once spent a long summer's day in the former place, searching those files for a copy of the delightful ballad sung (or attempted to be sung) by Dick Fletcher in Scott's "Pirate,"—the ballad beginning

"It was a ship, and a ship of fame,