Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio.

Here’s a man distributing tracts. Now, if he hands me one, I’ll throw it down. See how meekly he picks it up, and hands me another. “That’s right, friend Colporteur, I only wanted to see if you were in earnest: glad to see you so well employed.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he says, much relieved, “sinners here in New York need waking up” – which sentiment I endorse, and advise him to call at the N. Y. Tribune office.

Down comes the rain: had I taken my umbrella, not a drop would have fallen. “I ’spect” I was born on a Friday; but as that can’t be helped now, I’ll step into that book-store till the shower is over. The owner politely gives me a chair, and then hands me, for my edification, the last fashion prints! Fanny Fern! can it be possible that you look so frivolous? Tracts and fashion prints, both offered you in one forenoon! Wonder if there’s a second-hand drab Quaker bonnet anywhere, that will subdue your “style?”

See that little minstrel in front of the store, staggering under the weight of a hand-organ. What a crowd of little beggar-boys surround him, petitioning “for just one tune.” Now, I wonder if the rough school that boy has been in, has hardened his heart? Has he grown prematurely worldly-wise and selfish? Will he turn gruffly away from that penniless, Tom Thumb audience, or will he give them a gratuitous tune? God be thanked, his childish heart yet beats warm and true under that tattered jacket. He smiles sweetly on the eager group, and strikes up “Lang Syne.” Other than mortal ears are listening! That deed, unnoticed by the hurrying Broadway throng, is noted by the Recording Angel. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.”

Sunshine again! dripping awnings and sloppy pavements. There’s a man preaching an out-door temperance sermon: what a bungling piece of work he makes of it! If he would lend me that pro tem barrel-pulpit I’d astonish him, and take the feather out of “Miss Lucy Stone’s” bonnet.

Let us cross the Park. There’s an Irishman seated on the withered grass, with his spade beside him, leaning wearily against that leafless tree. I wonder is he ill? I must walk that way and speak to him. What a sudden change comes over his rough face! it looks quite beautiful. Why do his eyes kindle? Ah, I see: a woman approaches from yonder path; now she seats herself beside him, on the grass, and drawing the cover from a small tin kettle, she bends over the steaming contents, and says, with a smile, that is a perfect heart-warmer, “Dear Dennis!” Oh, what a wealth of love in those two simple words; what music in that voice! Who says human nature is all depravity? Who says this earth is but a charnel-house of withered hopes? Who says the “Heart’s Ease” springs never from the rock cleft? Who says it is only on patrician soil the finer feelings struggle into leaf and bud and blossom? No – no – that humble, faithful creature has traveled weary miles with needful food, that “Dennis” may waste no unnecessary time from labor. And there they sit, side by side, happy and blessed in each other, deaf to the ceaseless tide of business and pleasure flowing past, blind to the supercilious gaze of the pompous millionaire, the curious stare of pampered beauty, the derisive laugh of “Young America,” and the little romance they have set my brain a-weaving! What a pretty episode amid all this Babel din! What a delicious little bit of nature midst this fossil hearted Gotham!

How true – how beautiful the words of Holy Writ! “Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith.”

What an immensely tall man! he looks like a barber’s pole in those serpentine pants. Why does he make those gyrations? Why does he beckon that short man to his side? Well, I declare! everything comical comes to my net! He has taken out a slip of paper, and using the short man’s head for a writing-desk, is scribbling off some directions for a porter in waiting! The lamb-like non-resistance of the short man is only equalled by the cool impudence of the scribe! What a picture for Hogarth!

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE. NUMBER TWO

The fashionables are yet yawning on their pillows. Nobody is abroad but the workies. So much the better. Omnibus drivers begin to pick up their early-breakfast customers. The dear little children, trustful and rosy, are hurrying by to school. Apple women are arranging their stalls, and slyly polishing their fruit with an old stocking. The shopkeepers are placing their goods in the most tempting light, in the store windows; and bouquet venders, with their delicious burthens, have already taken their stand on the saloon and hotel steps.

Here come that de-socialized class, the New York business men, with their hands thrust moodily into their coat pockets, their eyes buttoned fixedly down to the sidewalk, and “the almighty dollar” written legibly all over them. If the automatons would but show some sign of life; were it only by a whistle. I’m very sure the tune would be

“I know a —Bank!”

See that pretty little couple yonder, crouched upon the sidewalk? What have you there, little ones? Five little, fat, roly-poly puppies, as I live, all heads and tails, curled up in that comical old basket! And you expect to get “a dollar apiece” for them? Bless your dear little souls, Broadway is full of “puppies,” who never “bring” anything but odious cigar smoke, that ever I could find out. Puppies are at a discount, my darlings. Peanuts are a safer investment.

Here we are at Trinity Church. I doubt if human lips within those walls ever preached as eloquently as those century grave-stones. How the sight of them involuntarily arrests the bounding footstep, and the half-developed plan of the scheming brain, and wakes up the slumbering immortal in our nature. How the eye turns a questioning glance from those moss-grown graves, inward – then upward to the soft, blue heavens above us. How for a brief moment the callous heart grows kindly, and we forget the mote in our brothers eye, and cease to repulse the outspread palm of charity, and recognise the claims of a common brotherhood; and then how the sweeping tide comes rolling over us, and the clink of dollars and cents drowns “the still small voice,” and Eternity recedes, and Earth only seems tangible, and Mammon, and Avarice, and Folly rule the never returning hours.

Now glance over the church-yard yonder into the street below. Cholera and pestilence, what a sight! flanked on one side by the charnel-house, on the other by houses whose basements are groggeries and markets, and at whose every pane of glass may be seen a score of dirty faces: the middle of the street a quagmire of jelly-mud, four inches deep, on which are strewn, ad-infinitum, decayed potatoes and cabbage stumps, old bones and bonnets, mouldy bread, salt fish and dead kittens. That pussy-cat New York corporation should be put on a diet of peppered thunder and gunpowder tea, and harnessed to a comet for six months. I doubt if even then the old poppies would wake up.

Do you see that piece of antiquity playing the bagpipe? He is as much a fixture as your country cousin. There he sits, through heat and cold, squeezing out those horrible sounds with his skinny elbow, and keeping time with his nervous eye-winkers. He gets up his own programme, and is his own orchestra, door-keeper and audience: nobody stops to listen, nobody fees him, nobody seems to enjoy it so hugely as himself.

Who talks about wooden nutmegs in the hearing of Gotham? Does a shower come up? Men start up as if by magic, with all-sized India rubbers for sale, and ragged little boys nudge your elbows to purchase “cheap cotton umbrellas.” Does the wind veer round south? A stack of palm-leaf fans takes the place of the umbrellas. Have you the misfortune to trip upon the sidewalk? a box of Russia salve is immediately unlidded under your nose. Do you stop to arrange your gaiter boot? whole strings of boot-lacings are dangled before your astonished eyes. Do your loosened waistbands remind you of the dinner hour? before your door stands a man brandishing “patent carving knives,” warranted to dissever the toughest old rooster that ever crowed over a hen harem.

Speaking of hens – see that menagerie, in one of the handsomest parts of Broadway, defaced by that blood and murder daub of a picture, representing every animal that ever flew or trotted into Noah’s ark, beside a few that the good old gentleman never undertook to perpetuate. See them lashing their tails, bristling their manes, ploughing the air and tossing high above their incensed horns, that distracted gory biped, whose every individual hair is made to stand on end with horror, and his coat-tail astonishingly to perpendicularize. Countrymen stand agape while pickpockets lighten them of their purses; innocent little children, with saucer eyes, shy to the further edge of the sidewalk, and hurry home with an embryo nightmare in their frightened craniums. “Jonathan” pays his “quarter,” and is astonished to find upon entering, a very tame collection of innocent beasts and beastesses, guiltless of any intention to growl, unless poked by the long pole of curiosity. Dissatisfied, he descends to the cellar, to see the elephant, who holds a sleepy levee, for all who feel inclined to pack his trunk with the apples and cake, which a shrewd stall-keeping Yankee in the corner disinterestedly advises them to buy, “just to see how the critter eats.”

Well; two-headed calves, one-eyed buffaloes, skeleton ostriches, and miles of serpents, are every day matters; but yonder is an announcement that “Two Wild Men from Borneo” may be seen within. Now that interests me. “They have the faculty of speech, but are deficient in memory.” Bless me, you don’t mean to say that those little Hop o’ my Thumbs have the temerity to call themselves “Men?” little humbug, pocket editions. But what pretty little limbs they have, and how they shiver in this cold climate, spite of the silk and India-rubber dress they wear under those little tights. “The youngest weighs only twenty-seven, the oldest thirty-four pounds;” so the keeper says, who, forming a circle, lays one hand on the head of each, and commences his stereotyped, menagerie exordium, oblivious of commas, colons, semi-colons, periods or breath; adding at the close, that the Wild Men will now shake hands with any child who may be present, but will “always bite an adult.” Nothing like a barrier to make femininity leap over. I’m bent upon having the first “adult” shake. The keeper says, “Better not, Ma’am,” (showing a scar on his finger,) “they bit that een-a-most to the bone.” Of course, snapping at masculinity, is no proof to me of their unsusceptibility to feminine evangelization; on the contrary. So, taking a cautious patrol around the interesting little savages, I hold out my hand. Allah be praised! they take it, and my five digits still remain at the service of printers and publishers!

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE. NUMBER THREE

What a never-ceasing bell-jingling, what a stampede of servants, what a continuous dumping down of big trunks; what transits, what exits, what a miniature world is a hotel! Panorama-like, the scene shifts each hour; your vis-a-vis at breakfast, supping, ten to one, in the Rocky Mountains. How delightful your unconsciousness of what you are foreordained to eat for dinner; how nonchalantly in the morning you handle tooth-brush and head-brush, certain of a cup of hot coffee whenever you see fit to make your advent. How scientifically your fire is made, without any unnecessary tattooing of shovel, tongs and poker. What a chain-lightning answer to your bell summons; how oblivious is “No. 14” of your existence; how indifferent is “No. 25” whether you sneeze six or seven times a day; how convenient are the newspapers and letter-stamps, obtainable at the clerk’s office; how digestible your food; how comfortable your bed, and how never-to-be-sufficiently-enjoyed the general let-alone-ativeness.

Avaunt, ye lynx-eyed “private boarding-houses,” with your two slip-shod Irish servants; your leaden bread, leather pies, ancient fowls, bad gravies, omnium gatherum bread puddings, and salt fish, and cabbage perfumed entries; your washing-day “hashes,” your ironing-day “stews,” and all your other “comforts of a home” (?) not explicitly set forth in your advertisements.

Rat-tat, rat-tat-tat! what a fury that old gentleman seems to be in. Whoever occupies No. 40, must either be deaf or without nerves. Rat-tat! what an obstinate human! there he goes again! ah, now the door opens, and a harmless-looking clergyman glides past him, down the stairs. Too late – too late, papa – the knot is tied; no use in making a fuss. Just see that pretty little bride, blushing, crying, and clinging to her boy husband. Just remember the time, sir, when the “auld wife” at home made you thrill to the toes of your boots; remember how perfectly oblivious you were of guide-boards or mile-stones, when you went to see her; how you used to hug and kiss her little brother Jim, though he was the ugliest, mischievous-est little snipe in Christendom; how you used to read books for hours upside down, and how you wondered what people meant by calling the moon “cold;” how you wound up your watch half-a-dozen times a day, and hadn’t the slightest idea whether you were eating geese or grindstones for dinner; how affectionately you nodded to Mr. Brown, of whom her father bought his groceries; how complacently you sat out the minister’s seventh-lie by her side at church; how wolfy you felt if any other piece of broadcloth approached her; how devoutly you wished you were that little bit of blue ribbon round her throat; and how, one moonlight night, when she laid her head against your vest-pattern, you – didn’t care a mint-julep whether the tailor ever got paid for it or not! Now, just imagine her papa, stepping in and deliberately turning all that cream to vinegar; wouldn’t you have effervesced? Certainly.

See that little army of boots in the entry outside the doors. May I need a pair of spectacles, if one of their owners has a decent foot! No. 20 turns his toes in, No. 30 treads over at the side; No. 40 has a pedestal like an elephant. Stay! – there’s a pair now – Jupiter! what a high instep! what a temper that man has! wonder if those are married boots? Heaven help Mrs. Boots, when her husband finds a button missing! It strikes me that I should like to mis-mate all those boots, and view, at a respectful distance, the young tornado in the entry, when the gong sounds!

Oh, you cunning little curly-headed, fairy-footed, dimple-limbed pet! Who is blessed enough to own you? Did you know, you little human blossom, that I was aunt to all the children in creation? Your eyes are as blue as the violets, and your little pouting lip might tempt a bee from a rose. Did mamma make you that dainty little kirtle? and papa find you that horsewhip?

“Papa is dead, and mamma is dead, too. Mamma can’t see Charley any more.”

God bless your sweet helplessness! creep into my arms, Charley. My darling, you are never alone! – mamma’s sweet, tender eyes look lovingly on Charley out of Heaven; mamma’s bright angel wings ever overshadow little Charley’s head; mamma and the holy stars keep watch over Charley’s slumbers. Mamma sings a sweeter song when little Charley says a prayer. Going? – well, then, one kiss; for sure I am, the angels will want you before long.

What is that? A sick gentleman, borne in on a litter, from shipboard. Poor fellow! how sunken are his great dark eyes! how emaciated his limbs! What can ail him? Nobody knows; not a word of English can he speak; and the captain is already off, too happy to rid himself of all responsibility. Lucky for the poor invalid that our gallant host has a heart warm and true. How tenderly he lifts the invalid to his room; how expeditiously he dispatches his orders for a Spanish doctor and nurse; how imploringly the sufferer’s speaking eyes are fastened upon his face. Ah! Death glided in at yonder door with the sick man; his grasp is already on his heart; the doctor stands aside and folds his hands – there’s no work for him to do; dark shadows gather round the dying stranger’s eyes; he presses feebly the hand of his humane host, and gasps out the last fluttering breath on that manly heart. Strange hands are busy closing his eyes; strange hands straighten his limbs; a strange priest comes all too late to shrive the sick man’s soul; strange eyes gaze carelessly upon the features, one glimpse of which were worth Golconda’s mines to far-off kindred. Now the undertaker comes with the coffin. Touch him gently, man of business; lay those dark locks tenderly on the satin pillow; hear you not a far-off wail from sunny Spain, as the merry song at the vintage feast dies upon the lip of the stricken-hearted?

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE. NUMBER FOUR

BARNUM’S POULTRY SHOW

Defend my ears! Do you suppose Noah had to put up with such a cackling and crowing as this, in his ark? I trust ear-trumpets are cheap, for I stand a chance of becoming as deaf as a husband, when his wife asks him for money.

I have always hated a rooster; whether from his perch, before daylight, he shrilly, spitefully, and unnecessarily, recalled me from rosy dreams to stupid realities; or when strolling at the head of his hang-dog looking seraglio of hens, he stood poised on one foot, gazing back at the meek procession with an air that said, as plain as towering crests and tail feathers could say it – “Stir a foot if you dare, till I give you the signal!” – at which demonstration, I looked instinctively about, for a big stone, to take the nonsense out of him!

Save us, what a crowd! There are more onions here than patchouli, more worsted wrappers than Brummel neck-ties, and more brogans than patent leather. Most of the visitors gaze at the perches, through barn-yard spectacles. For myself, I don’t care an egg-shell, whether that old “Shanghai” knew who her grandfather was or not, or whether those “Dorkings” were ever imprudent enough to let their young affections rove from their native roost. Yankee eyes were made to be used, and the first observation mine take, is, that those gentlemen fowls seem to have reversed the order of things here in New York, being very superior in point of beauty to the feminines. Of course they know it. See them strut! There never was a masculine yet whom you could enlighten on such a point.

Now, were I a hen, (which, thank the parish register, I am not,) I would cross my claws, succumb to that tall Polander with his crested helmet of black and white feathers, and share his demonstrative perch.

Oh, you pretty little “carrier doves!” I could find a use for you. Do you ever tap-tap at the wrong window, you little snow-flakes? Have you learned the secret of soaring above the heads of your enemies? Are you impregnable to bribes, in the shape of feed?

There’s an Eagle, fierce as a Hospodar. Bird of Jove! that you should stay caged in the tantalizing vicinity of those fat little bantams! Try the strength of your pinions, grim old fellow; call no man jailer; turn your back on Barnum, and stare the sun out of countenance!

Observe with what aristocratic nonchalance those salmon-colored pigeons sit their perch! See that ruffle of feathers about their dignified Elizabethan throats. I am not at all sure that I should have intruded into their regal presence, without being heralded by a court page.

Do you call those two moving bales of wool, sheep? Hurrah for “Ayrshire” farming! Fleece six inches deep, and the animals not half grown. Comfortable looking January-defiers, may your shearing be mercifully postponed till the dog days.

Pigs, too? petite, white and frisky; two hundred dollars a pair! Phew! and such pretty little gaiter boots to be had in Broadway! Disgusting little porkers, don’t wink your pink eyes at my Jewish resolution.

Puppies for sale? long-eared and short-eared, shaggy and shaven, bobtailed – curtailed – and to be re-tailed! Spaniel terrier and embryo Newfoundland. Ho! ye unappropriated spinsters, with a superfluity of long evenings – ye forlorn bachelors, weary of solitude and boot-jacks, listen to these yelping applicants for your yearning affections, and “down with the dust.”

“Nelly for sale, at twenty dollars.” Poor little antelope! The gods send your soft, dark eyes an appreciative purchaser. I look into their human-like depths, and invoke for you the velvety, flower-bestrewn lawn, the silver lake, in which your graceful limbs are mirrored as you stoop to drink, the leafy shade of fret-work leaves in the panting noon-tide heat, and the watchful eye and caressing hand of some bright young creature, to whom the earth is one glad anthem, and whose sweet young life (like yours) is innocent and pure.

Avaunt, pretentious peacocks, flaunting your gaudy plumage before our sated eyes. See that beautiful “Golden Pheasant,” on whose plump little body, clad in royal crimson, the sunlight lingers so lovingly. See the silky fall of those flossy, golden feathers about his arching neck. Glorious pheasant! do you know that “a thing of beauty is a joy forever?” Make your home with me, and feast my pen-weary eyes: flit before me when the sunlight of happiness is clouded in, and the gray, leaden clouds of sorrow overcast my sky; perch upon my finger; lay your soft neck to my cheek; bring me visions of a happier shore, where love is written on the rainbow’s arch, heard in the silver-tripping stream, seen in the blossom-laden bough and bended blade, quivering under the weight of dewy gems, and hymned by the quiet stars, whose ever-moving harmony is unmarred by the discord of envy, hate, or soul-blasting uncharitableness. Beautiful pheasant! come, bring thoughts of beauty and peace to me!

– Loving Jenny Lind smiles upon us from yonder canvass. Would that we might hear her little Swedish chicken peep! Not a semi-quaver careth the mother-bird for the homage of the Old World or New. The artless clapping of little Otto’s joyous hands, drowns all the ringing plaudits, wafted across the ocean. A Dead Sea apple is fame, dear Jenny, to a true woman’s heart. Happy to have hung thy laurel wreath on Otto’s little cradle.

TWO PICTURES

You will always see Mrs. Judkins in her place at the sunrise prayer-meeting. She is secretary to the “Moral Reform,” “Abolition,” “Branch Colporteur and Foreign Mission” Societies. She is tract distributor, manager of an “Infant School,” cuts out all the work for the Brown Steeple Sewing Circle; belongs to the “Select Female Prayer Meeting;” goes to the Friday night church meeting, Tuesday evening lecture, and Saturday night Bible Class, and attends three services on Sunday. Every body says, “What an eminent Christian is Mrs. Judkins!”

Mrs. Judkins’ house and servants take care of themselves. Her little boys run through the neighborhood, peeping into grocery and provision stores, loitering at the street corners, and throwing stones at the passers-by. Her husband comes home to a disorderly house, eats indigestible dinners, and returns to his gloomy counting-room, sighing that his hard earnings are wasted, and his children neglected; and sneering at the religion which brings forth such questionable fruits.

Mrs. Brown is a church member. Mrs. Judkins has called upon her, and brought the tears into her mild blue eyes, by telling her that she in particular, and the church in general, have been pained to notice Mrs. Brown’s absence from the various religious gatherings and societies above mentioned; that it is a matter of great grief to them, that she is so lukewarm, and does not enjoy religion as much as they do.

Mrs. Brown has a sickly infant; her husband (owing to sad reverses) is in but indifferent circumstances; they have but one inexperienced servant. All the household outgoings and incomings, must be carefully watched, and looked after. The little wailing infant is never out of the maternal arms, save when its short slumbers give her a momentary reprieve. Still, the little house is in perfect order. The table tasteful and tempting, although the bill of fare is unostentatious; the children are obedient, respectful, happy and well cared for. Morning and evening, amid her varied and pressing cares, she bends the knee in secret, to Him whom her maternal heart recognizes as “My Lord and my God.” No mantle of dust shrouds the “Holy Book.” The sacred household altar flame never dies out. Little dimpled hands are reverently folded; little lips lisping say, “Our Father.” Half a day on each returning Sabbath, finds the patient mother in her accustomed place in the sanctuary. At her hearth and by her board, the holy man of God hath smiling welcome. “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her;” while on high, the recording angel hath written, “She hath done what she could.”