Folly as It Flies; Hit at by Fanny Fern

While in Brattleboro I obtained permission to write in the quiet empty school-house, during the summer vacation. I thought while seated there of the probable fate and fortunes of their absent occupants. How many Senators, how many Presidents, how many Artists, how many Sculptors, how many Authors, how many men, and women, of note, might make their starting-point from that very school-house.

I should like to keep the statistics from this time had I leisure. You must know that it is an article in my creed that a New England cradle is the safest and fittest to rock a baby in. In other words, that a New England foundation is sounder and better than any other; the superstructure may be laid elsewhere – I had almost said anywhere – this being secured.

With these views, from which I am quite willing you should dissent, should it so please you, I look around on these vacant seats of our future men and women, with intense interest. "The war is over," I hear people say; I say it has just begun. The smoke of battle having cleared a little, he that hath eyes to see, shall note the dead who are to be carried out of sight, the maimed who are to be tenderly cared for, and the vultures who are to be driven, at all costs, from feeding on that which is as dear to us as our heart's blood. This work these children will have to do. Pinafores and blouses they will not wear forever. Balls, kites and dolls are but for now. Earnest men and women they must be, being New England born. Earnest for the Right, I plead, as I glance at the Teacher's Desk. I do not know him, who wields a power for which I would not exchange a monarch's throne – who must face in this world, and account for in the next, these boys and girls, who look to him for guidance and help; but whoever he may be, I trust that he holds his office, for sublimity and honor, second to none. I trust he looks beyond to-day, when he gazes into those clear, bright eyes, where his teachings are mirrored like the branches and blossoms in the clear, still lake beneath. I trust he sees in those boys something beyond a trousers-tearing, bird's-nest-robbing crew, out of whose craniums must be thumped fun, and into whose craniums must be bored grammar. I trust he sees in those girls something besides machines for sewing on buttons, and frying "flap-jacks," and making cheese. I trust he does not expect to run all these children, like a pound of candles, into the same shaped and sized mould. I trust he knows a properly developed head when he sees it, and believes in individuality of character, whether male or female. I am glad to hear that he does not see only dollars and cents in the glorious vocation he has adopted.

Schoolmaster! Why, Emperor, King, President, are nothing to it. There is only one thing before it, and that is – "Mother." Let the world look to it who are its schoolmasters. Let schoolmasters look to it that they are God-appointed to their places. If a conscientious clergyman need ask God's blessing on his Sunday message before delivering it to his flock, so much the more need the schoolmaster take the shoes from off his feet; because the place where he treads is holy ground.

Meantime, I sat there in the empty school-house, and watched the birds flit in and out through the open window, while the breath of the clover and the smell of the new-mown hay came pleasantly enough to my city-disgusted nose. So now, dear children all, whoever you may be, I leave you my hearty and sincere benediction for the pleasant hour in your school-house, when you had "a vacation" and I had none.

Now let me tell you a little story about a Green Mountain Sculptor. The town of Brattleboro', wrapped in its mantle of snow, looked very lovely one crisp, cold winter night. There were no operas, no theatres, no racketing or frolicking of any sort going on. The snow and the stars had it all their own way. I said it was "quiet," and yet, from the windows of one pretty little white house, lights were gleaming; and now a young man, warmly muffled to the ears, crosses the threshold, and is joined by two or three young companions, who commence gathering the snow in heaps in front of the house, while he shapes it with his benumbed fingers into the form of a pedestal; occasionally stepping back and looking at it, or slapping his hands together to produce circulation. Now upon the pedestal he commences modeling a figure; while his companions continue patiently to supply him with fresh heaps of the pure white snow, one holding a lantern while he proceeds with his work. Noiselessly and industriously they toil, no policeman disturbing them with curious inquiries or a threatened "station house." Occasionally they glide into the house, where warm flannels, and warm beverages, and a good fire, and "mother's" encouraging smile, await them, to inspire the party with new energy. It is near daylight, and still our snow-sculptor toils on, hour after hour, till, fair and lovely, stands before him, on this night of the New Year, the form of a Recording Angel, writing upon a scroll. Now, the party, taking one long look, quietly retire, leaving the figure conspicuously standing at the meeting of two roads. The stars gradually fade out, and Brattleboro' begins to be astir. First comes the earliest riser of all, poor "crazy Jim," who never seems to weary of wandering to and fro on the earth, and up and down on it. Dim in his confused brain lie tangled memories of childhood's "angels." He stands and gazes, awe-struck and wondering, while his busy, chattering tongue is for the time quite still. Now a farmer from the mountains glides over the snow with his fleet horse and sleigh, with tinkling bells, and reins up, and shares crazy Jim's amazement. As the morning wears on, the news flies that there is "an angel" among them. Schoolgirls and boys forget that it is "past nine," and stand spell-bound by the side of their parents, whose wonder at the marvellous beauty of the figure is only equalled by their curiosity as to the fingers that so cunningly shaped it. Had Brattleboro', with its other natural marvels, furnished also a genius? Was Vermont, rich in so many other treasures, to "keep" a sculptor? Artists were not wont to swarm in Brattleboro' in mid-winter, how long soever might be the list of "arrivals" during the balmy days of summer. There was no name of distinction now on the hotel books. Who could it be? And what a pity such a beautiful thing should perish, and fade away with the first warm rays of the sun. Among the crowd who gathered to wonder and admire came an editor. This editor was intelligent, and what is more, sympathetic and appreciative. He wrote a glowing account of the "snow-angel." The paper containing it met the eye of rich old Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati. He immediately sent an order to the young sculptor, who was then modestly enjoying his first triumph from the windows of his father's little white house, to perpetuate it for him in marble, not forgetting to send with the order a generous check in advance. This was substantial praise. This looked like beginning the world right. For once, Fortune, too often churlish to genius, seemed about to take it at once into her ample lap.

But our sculptor did not presume on this. He finished his beautiful statue to the satisfaction of his patron, and with the proceeds went to Italy, where he could more easily command the requisites of the profession for which Nature had ordained him. One lovely creation after another has succeeded the snow-angel, and are now cherished household treasures in his native land and State. I am not a Vermonter, unless strong love for its grand mountains and intelligent people can make me one; still, though suffering under the disgrace of not having been born in that glorious old State, I feel just as proud of that young Green Mountain sculptor and his beautiful works, as if its lovely valleys had cradled me.

So, lest other States begin to wrangle by and by as to the honor of producing him, I wish to place it on record that Larkin G. Mead was born and reared in Vermont, and nowhere else.

While in Vermont, it seemed to me that every State in the Union should consider it a religious duty to gather, in some shape, form or place, every relic of the war with which the people of that State were in any way connected. The golden moment of action in this regard will pass, is passing, with each fleeting day. Life presses heavily on most of us. The shuttlecock of the present is so busy and swift, that its whirr may well distract us from aught else. But think! to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren what these relics would be. This coat, torn, blood-stained, bullet-riddled in so many battles. This shoe, patched with improvised needle and thread in the horrible prison pens of Andersonville and Libby. This – but time would fall me to tell of the relics and memorials which every farm-house in the country might yield, and which might so easily now become a nation's property and pride. I was particularly awake to this subject because I lately saw, up here in Brattleboro', a private by the name of Colt, with his right arm now quite useless, who has in his possession a fiddle manufactured by himself, while in camp, from a maple stump, with no other tools than a jackknife, and a piece of broken bottle, a gimlet and an old file, which he made into a chisel.

It was in Virginia, on the Potomac, below Washington, that his regiment was located. "Boys," said one of them, as they lounged in their tents at nightfall, when it will not do to think too long or too much of the dear faces they might never more see – "boys, if we had a fiddle here we might have some music." "I could play on it," says one, (what can't a Yankee do?) "So can I," said another. "Well," said our hero, "the only way for us to have a fiddle is to make one." No sooner said than begun, at least. A maple stump was found, and comrade after comrade, when off duty, watched its transformation to a fiddle with the intensest interest. Some laughed, some cheered; praise, blame or indifference were all alike to our indomitable private, who was bound to get music out of that maple stump.

Still the fiddle grew. Still the chips flew. A good piece of wood was desirable for what I shall designate as the lid; – the bottom and sides being finished. Our private looked about. There was an old box in camp, sent from prolific Vermont, with "goodies" for her valiant boys. He seized upon the best part of it, and shaped it to its purpose, polishing it smooth with the broken bit of glass. The pegs he made from the horns of secesh cattle slaughtered by the rebels, when they didn't dream our boys would rout them to take possession. The strings for the fiddle-bow he made of hairs from the tail of the General's horse. Just at this juncture in fiddle-progress, came a pause. Where are the fiddle strings to come from? Away there in camp; even a Yankee might well stop, and scratch his head. Up comes an officer, and gazes with dumb wonder on that improvised fiddle. When he found his tongue, he offered our private to send to Washington by the sutler for the desired strings. These were obtained, and straightway fastened in their places. And now behold a pretty, delicate little affair, in color resembling the satin wood-fans sent us from Fayal. But did it have music in it? Most assuredly. There is the beauty of it. The tone of our Yankee fiddle is irreproachable.

Now I ask, is that fiddle to become the property and pride of Vermont, and be handed down, as it should, to its future sons and daughters, with the name of its enterprising maker? As I sat in that low-roofed wooden house, listening to his simple story, and looking first at the fiddle, and then at his twisted and useless arm, and then at a little fat roly-poly of a dimpled baby on the carpet, I thought – well, I said, Fanny, thank God that you were born a Yankee; and now go home and tell the world the history of that fiddle. And I have done it. Now, millions of relics, most interesting, like this, lie scattered all over the land. Let each State garner its own. It is due to the brave fellows who, modest as brave, will never do it themselves. It is due to these "Privates" to whom no splendid residences in our cities are presented, ready furnished and victualled. Let them have the reward of remembrance and appreciation, at least from a grateful posterity.

After leafy, lovely Vermont, to come back to the dusty city! To lose October! the golden month of all the year in the country, that one may come to town, to see that a dusty house is put in shining order: that's what I call a trial. Of course, I anticipate your provoking rejoinder – "What if you had no house to put to rights?" And now, if you have done interrupting me, I will proceed to say, that to decide between poultry, beef, mutton or veal for dinner; to make the disgusting tour of closets and cupboards that have enjoyed a long summer vacation in company with mice; instead of strolling "down to the river" and watching the little boats glide on its polished surface, or gaze at the mist lazily rolling off the mountain; while sweet odors of flowers, and the fresh smell of grass, make breathing itself a luxury, for which you can find no words of thanks – this change, I say boldly, is not to my taste. Not to mention, of a hot morning, when you innocently thought hot mornings were quite gone till next season, sitting in Intelligence Offices trying to decipher the countenances of various applicants for the care of your kitchen-range, or dining-room, or bed-chamber, when your tantalizing thoughts were far away on delicious roads, shaded so thickly with trees that in the hottest noon scarce a sun-ray penetrated, while the cool water dripped from mossy rocks, or rushed foaming over them, with a glad free joy that set you wild with longing. To fight rabid city mosquitoes all night, after a blessed freedom from the wretches all summer; to listen to the shrieks of infuriated cats, in the intervals, instead of the whisper of the soft leaves almost within your bed-room window; to hear the ceaseless click, click, of the tireless street cars, instead of the solitary musical "peep, peep" of some little bird; to be woke in the morning, when exhausted nature craves so madly that one little restoring-nap before breakfast, by the whooping of infuriated milk-men, and the thumping and ringing of bakers; in short, after kicking your heels like a colt in a pasture all summer, to be suddenly noosed, caught and harnessed to a relentless dray-cart which keeps on going up hill, regardless of your disgusted puffing and panting and attempts at halting; well – I trust now you understand what my emotions are on returning to this Pandemonium of a city, after a breezy, care-free, delicious summer sojourn in the mountains.

What do I care for the "new style of bonnets," when I have found it so much pleasanter to stroll out without any covering for the head? What to me are "top-boots" with red and blue tassels and lacings, when any old shoe served my turn if a lovely country tramp was in prospect? What to me are new dresses? involving weary hunts for buttons, and "bones," and hooks, and eyes, and cord, and tassels, and lace, and bugles, and gimp, and facings, and linings, and last, but not least, a "lasso" to catch a dress-maker?

That's what I said to myself as I sat down on my dusty travelling trunk, with my hair full of cinders, and both fingers stuffed in my ears to keep out the questions that were pouring into them about what was to be done with this and that and t'other thing; and if I wanted the windows cleaned first or last; this paint or that paint scrubbed. Good heavens! said I, what is woman that she should be thus tormented?

That was the first onslaught, you see, and I am not naturally a patient animal. But now that the wheels are greased and the household machinery "whistles itself," it is a comfort to sit down again in my own favorite little chair, which must really have been made for my particular shoulders and back. It is a comfort to have a nail and a closet and a shelf for everything, and see my worldly effects neatly placed away from dust, each in its own niche, where I can find them on the darkest night without the aid of a light. It is a comfort to have many rooms, instead of two. It is pleasant, after all, to feel that you yourself have brought all this order out of chaos, although man – ungrateful creature – gobbles up the results without any such reflection.

After all, I'm going to be proud of myself, since nobody else will praise me; I'm proud of myself, I say, as I take a cake of glycerine soap to remove the working traces from my hands and put my fingers in writing order. And then, after all, this had to be done; and one's life can't be all play, and I must be woman enough to take my share of the disagreeables, instead of shirking them like a great coward; for all that, I like a tree better than a broomstick; a fine sunset better than a gridiron; also I prefer a flower-garden to a sewing-machine, if the truth must out.

But back again in town, how shall we adapt ourselves to its unnatural ways? Every thing in the country, animate and inanimate, seems to whisper, be serene, be kind, be happy. We grow tolerant there unconsciously. We feel that in the city we are not only hard, but that we by no means get the most out of life. We wonder if, after all, the opera is better than the gushing melody which is ours for the listening, whenever we will. We wonder if the silken sheen of the Queen of Sheba fabrics, which our splendid store-windows display, quite comes up to the autumnal splendor of the woods and mountains. Our bones ache with the necessity of spick-and-span-ness trammelling every movement indoors and out. And if, as Goethe asserts, "the unconscious are alone complete," what chance do city people stand of ever being rounded out, mentally and morally, where everybody is on the qui vive lest his neighbor outshine him? Where the must haves multiply faster than rabbits, and grow so clamorous that we forget there is a possibility of silencing their tyrant voices? It is so long, too, since we have seen a drunkard, or a beggar, or a wretched woman who dare not think of her sinless infancy, that these things come to us with such an appalling newness, that we are shocked and pained that we could ever have become accustomed to their presence, or shall ever grow so again, by daily contact.

We almost dread ourselves. Our life seems puerile, and ignoble, and cruel. It seems dreadful to take all this wretchedness, and waste of life, as a matter of course, and that with which we have nothing to do. We can't get used to the worn faces, the hurried footsteps, the jostling indifference, the dust, and grime, and shabbiness through which we plunge at every turn. Visions of moss-dripping rocks, huge and grand; sweet, grassy roads, full of birds, and darting squirrels; plentiful orchards and barns; stout, round, rosy children, tumbling therein. Cows, with their rich burdens, going slowly homeward. The farmer, brown and happy, sitting with his happy wife, in the low doorway, at eventide, with peace written upon their faces. Oh, we had much rather think of these, and close our eyes on all this maelstrom-misery, and tinselled grandeur. We feel stifled. We throw up the window, and wonder what can ail us? for unrest, unquiet, and strife seem to be in the very atmosphere that we breathe.

We want to get out of it, since the times are out of joint, and we can't help everything, at least. We feel a cowardly desire to fly, and simply enjoy ourselves; somewhere, anywhere, but in this Babel of odds and ends; where everything is always beginning, and never is finished; where mouths keep opening, faster than loaves of bread can be baked; where churches are built so grand, that poor people can't say a prayer in them; where rulers are elected by whiskey, instead of wisdom; where, on the other side of the thin wall which frames your home, the awful tragedies of life and death go on, without a thought or care from you; where bitter tears fall, which you might, but don't assuage, because your neighbor, having enough of this world's goods, is supposed to need nothing else.

Oh, I dare say I shall ossify in time; but at present these thoughts keep me quite miserable after the serene, heavenly peace, and plenty, and content of the country.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK. – THE DIFFERENCE

TO live in Boston is to feel necessitated to wear your "Sunday clothes" all through the week. To live in New York is to wear a loose wrapper every day in the seven if you choose, without danger of being sent to Coventry for so doing; not because Gotham admires your wrapper, but because it has not time or inclination to overhaul so minute a circumstance. In New York, you may wash your one pair of stockings every night; or you may have seven changes of the same for all New York will care about it. In Boston the pedigree of your stockings, shawls, and bonnets is, by no contrivance of ingenuity, hidden. In New York, good Christians can take a walk on Sunday, if it does not lead straight to the church door. In Boston, one perils his salvation, and business standing, by taking a breath of air that has not first blown round a pulpit. In Boston, a rich man or woman must, in public places, keep within the talismanic circle marked out for them, nor cross the line of demarkation at peril of non-recognition. In New York a rich man or woman, by virtue of such position, feels at liberty to take any loafer-ish jump over the customary fence that inclination shall dictate. In Boston, the literary knee is not literary, if it has not knelt before certain shrines. In New York, if it is a genuine knee, it may kneel or not kneel, so far as perilling its safe foundation is concerned. In Boston, one who carries a parcel is supposed not to be able to hire it sent. In New York one may carry a double armful, without being suspected of living at the Five Points. In Boston, people settle your claims to notice by inquiring if you know Mr. This or visit Mrs. That. New York is more interested to know, whether you are eligible by virtue of good manners, and general jolliness, without reference to your tailor, hatter, or dressmaker. In New York, if you choose only to board two servants instead of five, and decline wasting your life in superintending their neglect of upholstery, silver, and china, your intelligence, and irreproachable grammar, are considered an equivalent. In Boston, under such circumstances, the golden gate turns not on its hinges to let you into the crystal city.

In other words, well as I love old Boston – and I do love it – I must own that it is a snob of the first water. It makes a vast difference what my opinion is, of course; but for all that, when Boston stays all its life in Boston, it becomes fossilized, mummy-ized, swathed round and round, from neck to heel, so that growth and expansion are morally impossible.

Still, let Boston always be born in Boston; but after it grows vigorous, if it would stay vigorous, and not get the cramp of self-conceit till it can't turn its "Boston neck," no matter how loudly the wheel of progress is dashing past, let it migrate betimes to New York; where it will get wholesomely thumped and bumped, and its conservative corns pounced upon by the rushing crowd; who will knock its respectable shiny hat over its eyes fifty times a day, all the same as though it was not one of the "highly respectable citizens," the state of whose kitchen-chimney is gravely reported to a gaping universe, in their daily papers.

I don't know what would become of New York had it not its Paradise in the Central Park. I never go there without blessing its originator, and wishing it might be baptized with a more suggestive and prettier name. But never mind names. In its lovely October dress, with its sparkling lake, and drooping willows, its white swans, its lovely velvet greensward; the myriads of sweet children alighting here and there, in their bits of gay dresses, like little humming birds or orioles, with happy mothers and fathers who have left their cares and frets in the city, and come there to be young again for too brief an hour, with the little ones; all this is a picture to feast the eye and gladden the heart. In one respect Central Park might borrow a hint from Boston Common. There the little children are allowed to run upon the grass at all times; not on certain days of the month or week as in Central Park. Said a bright little child of six the other day, when asked if it would like to go to Central Park: "No! (emphatically) no! I don't want to waste my time going where they won't let me step on the grass."