The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 37, November, 1860

NoCredit Will be GiveninThis Store afterThis DateUnder no circumstances whateverMy Reasons

I cannot buy goods or do business without cash, and as the bulk of my capital is now trusted out with the promise to pay which that promise has never been full filled I deem it a duty to myself and my Cash paying customers to sell goods for cash at the lowest market price.

I shall indeavor make it an interest of my customers to pay cash for all goods purchas by them. I shall offer goods at reduced rates as an inducement for all to pay cash.

If I am asked if I give credit I want this to be my answer No Never.

ELKANAH MILLS

Distrust not, O reader! This is verbatim et literatim a copy.

In front of the "store" was a hay-scale, across the way a tavern, and, at respectful distances along the street, white or red houses, with the inevitable front-door, south-door, kitchen-and shed-floor, lilacs and altheas before the windows, fennel, tiger-lilies, sweet-brier, and Bar_gun_dy rosebushes, with red "pinies" and livid hydrangeas, or now and then a mat of stonecrop and "voilets" along the posy-bed that edged cabbage and potato-plots, while, without the fence, Bouncing-Bets adorned the road-side, or blue sea-pinks from the pasture-lot strayed beyond its rails.

Nothing happened in Deerfield; so nothing happened to "'Tenty Scran'," as the school-children nicknamed her. She earned her living now at tailoring and dress-making; for Miss 'Viny was much "laid up with rheumatiz," and could not go about as was her wont. Also, the art and mystery of housekeeping became familiar to the child, and economy of the domestic sort was a virtue she learned unconsciously by continual practice. She went to church on Sundays in a clean calico frock and a white cape, sat in the singers' seat and uplifted her voice in Lenox and Mear, Wells and Bethesda, shared her fennel with the children in the gallery, looked out the text in her Bible, and always thought Parson Goodyear's sermon was intended for her good, and took it in accordingly.

I should like to say that 'Tenty Scran' was pretty; in fact, I have always regarded it as one of the chief pleasures of a literary calling, that you are not obliged to take people as they are, but can make them to order, since it takes no more pen-scratches to describe luxuriant curls and celestial eyes and roseate lips than it does to set forth much less lovely things; but when it comes to stubborn facts, why, there you have to come down to this world, and proceed accordingly,—so I must say 'Tenty was not handsome. She had fresh rosy cheeks and small brown eyes, hair to match the eyes, a nose undeniably pug, a full, wide mouth, and strong, white teeth,—fortunately, since every one showed when she laughed, and she laughed a great deal. Then she had a dumpy figure, and good large hands and feet, a look of downright honesty and good-temper, and a nice, clear voice in speech or singing, though she only sang hymns. But for all this, every-body in Deerfield liked 'Tenty Scran'; old and young, men and maidens, all had a kindly welcome for her; and though Aunt 'Viny did not say much, she felt the more.

But "everybody has their sorrers," as Hannah-Ann Hall remarked, in one of her "'Cademy" compositions, and 'Tenty came to hers when she was about twenty-two. Miss Lovina was almost bed-ridden with the rheumatism that year, and 'Tenty had to come back twice a day from her work to see to her, so that she made it up by staying evenings, against her usual rules. Now about the middle of that May, Doctor Parker's scapegrace son Ned came home from sea,—a great, lazy, handsome fellow, who had run away from Deerfield in his fifteenth year, because it was so "darned stupid," to use his own phrase. Doctor Parker was old, and Mrs. Parker was old, too, but she called it nervous; and home was stupider than ever to Ned, particularly as he had broken his ankle and was laid on the sofa for a good six weeks at least. About the second of those weeks, Content Scranton came to "do over" Mrs. Parker's summer-gowns, and put her caps together after their semi-annual starching.

Of course 'Tenty sat in the "keeping-room," where the old sofa was; and of course Ned had nothing better to do than to watch the gay, good little bee at her toil, hear her involuntary snatches of hymn-singing, laugh at her bright simplicity, and fall in love with her, sailor-fashion,—"here to-day, and gone tomorrow."

'Tenty stayed a long time at Mrs. Parker's that summer; she seemed to get on so slowly with her work, but, as Mrs. Parker said,—

"Why, the fact of it is, 'Tenty is so handy and so spry, I can't see how to spare her. Ed'ard, he wants a sight of waitin' on; and I am so nervous, and husband is afflicted with neuralogy, beside that he is considerable in years, so we can't be around as we used to be; and 'Tenty steps about and gets Ed'ard his books, and his victuals, and fixes his pillows, and keeps the light out of his eyes, so't he isn't contented a moment of time without she's right there."

And while Mrs. Parker was conveying these ideas to Miss 'Viny, they were being illustrated in her own house after this fashion:—

"'Tenty," (three weeks had abolished the Miss,) "won't you give me that blue book off the shelf?"

'Tenty sprang up and handed the book, and went to her work again, beginning under her breath to hum

"Sweet fields beyond"–

"Dear me! this pillow has slipped away. 'Tenty, won't you fix it?"

Jump the second;—the pillow is put straight under Ned's dark curls, though he is so helpless she has to raise his head with one arm and arrange the cushion with the other; then the seam and hymn recommence.

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling"–

"I wish I had a drink of cold water."

Jump the third;—'Tenty finishes her hymn on the way to the well, and brings the water, and holds the invalid up to drink it, and then the pillows fall again, and the book slips down, and everything goes wrong and has to be re-arranged, and at length 'Tenty goes back to her place by the window quite indisposed to sing, but glowing with a new, shy pleasure, for Ned had looked up at her with those great gray eyes that said so much more than his lips did, and laid his cheek against the stubbed hand that arranged his pillows, and said,—"Oh, 'Tenty! how good you are!" in tones that meant, "and how I love you!" as well, though he did not say it.

So matters progressed from day to day, Ned needing more and more care, till he made his first progress across the room with a cane and the help of 'Tenty's shoulder; after which experiment he began to recover rapidly, impelled by the prospect of getting away from that house and being free to go where he chose again.

For 'Tenty had ceased to amuse or interest him as much as she had done; six weeks had done away with the novelty of her deepening color and shy dropping eyes; beside, she laughed less, almost ceased to sing, sighed softly, and looked quiet and grave, instead of gay and unconscious. It was the old fable of sport to the boys and death to the frogs. She thought he was in earnest; he knew he was amusing himself.

Miss 'Viny noticed the change in her darling, but she was a woman who had acquired wisdom by experience, and she said nothing; she only grew more exacting of 'Tenty's presence, wanted her earlier in the evening, found fault with her food, and behaved generally so unlike her usual stern patience, that Content was really roused out of her dreaminess to wonder what ailed Aunt 'Viny.

As soon as Ned Parker was able to get out of doors again, he was heard of in every house in the village, making himself agreeable after his own fashion,—drinking hard cider with the old farmers, praising their wives' gingerbread and spruce-beer, holding skeins for the girls, going on picnics, huckleberryings, fishing-excursions, apple-bees, riding Old Boker, his father's horse, bare-backed down the street, playing ball on the green, and frequenting singing-school with one pretty girl and another, till all Deerfield shook its head and remarked that "That 'ere Ned Parker was a master-hand for carryin' on." And 'Tenty sewed harder than ever.

What makes me always put love into a story, Aunt Grundy? Why, because love is popular; because nine-tenths of the people who read smile to see the first and faintest hint of the tender passion in what they read; because a story without love is like bricks without straw; because a life without it is a life no doubt comfortable to lead, but uninteresting to hear. Love is your only democrat; Ethelinda in Fifth Avenue, glittering with the clear splendor of diamonds, and rustling like a white-birch-swamp with pale silks, gleaming through the twilight before an opera, and looking violets at Sydney Hamilton over the top of her inlaid fan, is no more thrilled and rapt and tortured by the Disturber in Wings, than Biddy in the kitchen, holding tryst with her "b'y" at the sink-room window. Thousands of years ago, Theseus left Ariadne tearing the ripples of her amber-bright hair, and tossing her white arms with the tossing surf, in a vain agony of distraction and appeal: poets have sung the flirtation, painters have painted it; the story is an eternal legend of pain and passion, illuminated with lucent tints of age and the warm South, outlined with the statuesque purity of classic scenery and classic diction: but I myself never for a moment believed that Ariadne was a particle more unhappy or pitiable than Nancy Bunker, our seamstress, was, when Hiram Fenn went West to peddle essences, and married a female Hoosier whose father owned half a prairie. They would by no means make as lovely a picture; for Nancy's upper jaw projects, and she has a wart on her nose, very stiff black hair, and a shingle figure, none of which adds grace to a scene; and Hiram went off in the Slabtown stage, with a tin-box on his knees, instead of in a shell-shaped boat with silken sails; but I know Nancy reads love-stories with great zest, and I know she had a slow fever after Hiram was married. For, after all, love is the same thing ever since Paradise,—the unwearying tradition, the ever new presence, the rapture or the anguish unspeakable; and while 'Tenty Scran' sat and sewed at Squire Hall's new linen pantaloons, she set every stitch with a sigh, and sewed on every button with a pang that would have made Ariadne put both arms round her, and kiss her long and close, a sister in bonds,—though purple robes with jewelled borders, crescented pearls, and armlets of gold, would not have been at all congruous hugging a sixpenny calico with a linen collar.

Not that Ned neglected 'Tenty; he could not follow her about from house to house, and she had done sewing for his mother, and in the evening Aunt 'Viny always needed her. But more than once he joined her after church, walked home to the door with her, and cheered her simple soul with his familiar looks and tones, and words of praise that made Adriadne Scran' think Theseus Parker a little more than mere man, something altogether adorable. However, she knew he was having a very good time when he didn't see her at all. The real reason why she ached and sighed over Squire Hall's pantaloons was, that she heard Ned in the next room helping Hannah-Ann Hall pack up the dinner for their grand Snake Hill picnic, and diverting the same Hannah-Ann with such wit and humor and frolic, that she declared several times she should split, and begged him not to be so funny.

Now 'Tenty never had a pleasant day, unless Ned was with her,—it had got as far as that; and the idea that he could and did enjoy himself so thoroughly and heartily without her was a dull pang that ate into her soul continually, and made her forlorn. Oh, these women! these pitiful creatures! not magnanimity enough in a whole race of them to be visible to the naked eye! jealous dogs-in-the-manger! If they weren't useful domestically, I should vote for having them exterminated from this great generous world, and give place to some better institution, which no doubt could be got up by the india-rubber companies or the scientific conventions. But as Alphonso of Castile did not make the world, one must take it as it is; and I will say, for the encouragement of philosophers, that I have known one magnanimous woman, and she a beautiful woman, moreover.

So 'Tenty sewed, and ached, and made Aunt 'Viny's bed and her gruel, read her Bible and prayed for Ned Parker, and thought she was growing very old, till one night he asked her to go to singing-school with him; whereupon she put on a pink calico dress, and began to recover her youth most wonderfully.

They went to Master Solon's singing-school, it is true; but they never got home to Aunt 'Viny's till half past nine, and 'Tenty never could remember what tunes they sang; and the singers in church next Sunday asked her why she didn't come in when she got as far as the door, and 'Tenty said she thought the benches were all full! Truth, stern tutor of the historian, compels me to confess that 'Tenty and Ned Parker were sitting on the meeting-house steps most of that evening, in a touching attitude; for Ned was telling her how his ship had come into port and was going to sail again for South America, and he had an offer to join her as second mate; so he had got to say goodbye to his kind little nurse, and so forth and so on, with admonitions never to forget him, and how he never should forget her, and here was a little locket; and finally, sobered by her stifled sobs, Ned bent down his handsome head, and said, softly,—

"Won't you kiss me for good-bye, 'Tenty?"

Dear me! of course she kissed him, and thought how good he was to kiss her, and told him so. Whereupon he got better and better; and when the sexton came to ring the bell for nine o'clock, they only just heard his steps in time to steal away unobserved through the starry darkness, and go round past the pine-grove. So reaching home at the aforesaid late hour, where Mr. Ned became good again when he stooped to unlatch the gate, 'Tenty looked so fresh and rosy and sweet when she came in, that Aunt 'Viny growled to herself, found fault with her gruel, scolded at the blanket, tipped over the teacup, and worried 'Tenty back into stern reality, till the girl stole off to her bed. Not to sleep,—oh, no! Waste such sweetness on sleep? Never! She lay there, broad awake, and thought it all over, and how very nice it was to have anybody love her so much, and how she should like to be handsome and smart and worthy so much honor, till the cock crowed for dawn, and then she fell asleep, nowise daunted by the recollection that Ned had said nothing to her except that she was as sweet as a ripe blackberry and as pretty as a daisy; for to her innocent logic actions spoke louder than words, and she knew that anybody who did so (?) must love her enough to marry her.

So Ned sailed for Valparaiso, and 'Tenty stayed at home. Aunt 'Viny got no better in all those winter-snows and blows; they are not favorable to rheumatism, these New-England airs; so 'Tenty had enough to do; but she was happy and contented. And winter crept by and merged into spring, and spring into autumn, before Deerfield heard any news of Ned Parker; though, in the mean time, one report after another of his being engaged to various girls, at length settling with marked weight on Hannah-Ann Hall, spread over the village and was the theme of Sunday-noon gossips and sewing-society meetings, greatly to 'Tenty's contempt and amusement,—though the contempt was too bitter and the amusement too tremulous to be pleasant. For did not she know better? People don't kiss people when they don't like them: a self-evident proposition, but one that required some assertion and repetition to weigh its right weight in her mind.

Poor little 'Tenty! In that cold November there came a letter to Doctor Parker just as he was getting out of his gig, after a round of visits. The postmaster, going home to dinner, handed it to him, and, going back from dinner, was called in to lift him up-stairs to his bed. Ned Parker had been wrecked off the Horn, the crew took to their boats, and only one boat, with one surviving man to tell the tale, was picked up by a whaler coming back to New Bedford from the Pacific; all the rest were gone. Doctor Parker was old and feeble; this only child was all he had; paralysis smote his body when the smitten mind bowed before that dire knowledge, and he never looked up again. Content would have given anything to go and nurse him; but she, too, was stunned, and in the whirl of that great grief even Aunt 'Viny's demands were no more to her than a dull mechanic routine that she could hardly force her trembling steps to carry through. So she stayed at home, sewing all day and crying all night, and looking generally miserable, though she said nothing; for whom could she speak to? Aunt 'Viny had resolutely kept her suspicions about Ned Parker to herself, though well she knew who had walked home from meeting with 'Tenty in those pleasant autumn Sundays now gone, pleasure and all. But Miss 'Viny believed in silence on such matters, and had held her peace; now it was too late to break it. Nor was 'Tenty disposed to tell her anything; for it occurred for the first time to her innocent soul that she had nothing to tell. So they both went on their way, with secret pity and still endurance.

After a brief illness of three days, poor old Doctor Parker's weary soul and body gave out; he died on a Thursday afternoon, and, in country-fashion, it was proposed to bury him on Sunday, from the church. Sunday came, cold and raw and blustering. 'Tenty took her usual seat in the gallery, but took it early, that she might see the "mourners" come in and fill the front pews kept for them. She wiped away the tears from her eyes, and looked on with a feeling of half envy, thinking of the son to whom no funeral honors should ever now be paid, slumbering in the cruel seas that break and roar about the Horn. She counted the bearers, all known faces; she watched Parson Goodyear into the pulpit; she saw Mrs. Parker on her brother's arm. But there was one other veiled female figure, shrouded also in black, whose presence she could no way account for; and when Parson Goodyear made his first long prayer, and sent up an earnest petition for the doubly bereaved woman before him, what did he mean by adding,—"And Thine other handmaid, in the bloom of her years bereaved of hope and promise,—her whom Thou hast afflicted from afar off, and made a widow before Thee"? What did it mean? 'Tenty's breath fluttered, and she turned cold. Just at that moment, one of her neighbors murmured under her bonnet,—"That's Hanner-Ann, next to Miss Parker; only to think how sly she's kep' it a hull year! And she engaged to Ed'ard all that time! I wouldn't never ha' believed it, ef she hadn't had his letters to show for't, an' a gold watch he gin her; an' Miss Parker says she's knowed it all the time."

Little more did 'Tenty know of psalm or sermon; some whirling sounds passed her, and then a rush of people. She was last to leave the church; and when she got home, and went to make Miss 'Viny's tea, as she tilted the long well-sweep down and up to draw her pail of water, she looked earnestly down the depths of crystal, as if to see what lay below, then quietly opened her left hand above it;—something bright fell, dashed the clear drops from a fern that grew half-way down, tinkled against a projecting stone, made a little splash, and was gone. 'Tenty took up her pail and went into the shed; and Ned Parker's locket lies at the bottom of the well, for all I know, to this day. Thenceforth 'Tenty cried no more; though for many weeks she was grave, wretched, pining.

Winter set in with furious storms and heavy snows, but, strange to say, Aunt 'Viny grew better; she could sit up; at length could move about; and at last, one night when she sat by the fire knitting, suddenly looked up at 'Tenty and said,—

"You haven't seen Miss Parker lately, have you, Content?"

'Tenty shivered a little.

"No, I have not, Aunt 'Viny."

"Well, it appears as though you should go and see her; she's a weakly woman, but she can set her back up dreadful against the Lord's doings, and I don't know but what such kind of people need comfortin' more 'n others. It's a world full o' gales, this is, and everybody hasn't learnt the grass's lesson, to bend when the wind blows."

"The Lord sends the wind, Aunt 'Viny."

"The Lord sends everything, only folks don't allow it; they'd ruther lay it to the door of man, so's to feel free to worry. But the worst thing He ever does send to people is their own way, 'Tenty; and you'll know it before you die."

'Tenty turned away to her work, hardly convinced by Miss 'Viny's wisdom, and inwardly thinking she should like to try her own way for all that. However, 'Tenty suffered far less than she might have done, for indignation helped her; the feeling that Ned Parker had deliberately amused himself with her, while she was in mortal earnest, had lowered him not a little from his height. Then Aunt 'Viny's care diverted her sad thoughts from herself, by sending her upon daily errands to the poor and the sick, so that 'Tenty's pleasant face and voice became the hope of the hour to more than one poverty-stricken or dying woman; and so her own grief, measured by theirs, shrank and withdrew itself day by day, and became something she could now and then forget. And more than all, her naturally sweet temperament and healthy organization helped her to recover.

Myriads have died of a broken heart, no doubt, but it was physiologically broken; grief torments into sleeplessness, sleeplessness destroys the appetite, then strength goes, the circulation fails, and any latent evil lurking in the constitution springs on the helpless and willing victim and completes its work. This is a shockingly unromantic and material view to take of the matter, and brings to nought poems by the hundred and novels by the thousand; but is it not, after all, more true to God and human nature to believe in this view than to think He made men or women to be the sport of passion and circumstance, even to their destruction?

'Tenty Scran' was too healthy to break her heart,—and too unselfish; so she gradually recovered her bright bloom, and went to her work, and took care of Aunt 'Viny, as energetically and gayly as ever. Hannah-Ann Hall married a lawyer from Meriden, and moved away, quite consoled for Ned, within three years; but 'Tenty favored no lovers, though one or two approached her. There are some—women who are like the aloe,—their life admits of but one passion. It comes late and lasts long, but never is repeated; the bloom dies out of its resplendence and odor, but no second flowering replaces it. She was one of these. But what one man lost in her love, a thousand of her fellow-creatures gained. 'Tenty was the Deerfield blessing, though she never knew it herself. All the sick wanted her; all the children pulled at her gown, and smiled at her from their plays; her heart and her hands were so full, no regret found place to nestle there, and silence brooded dove-like over that sorrowful time gone by.

After a while, some ten years after Ned Parker's death, Miss 'Viny took to her bed again,—this time never to rise. Slow consumption had fastened on her, and she knew well what was before her, for so had her mother died; but no saint was ever more patient than she. 'Tenty was the best of nurses, and had even learned to speak of her aunt's death without a tremor in her voice, the last triumph of her unselfishness; for Miss 'Viny could bear no agitation, and yet needed to speak of the event she neither dreaded nor desired.

"'Tenty," said she, one day, "I feel a sight easier to leave you than if you'd married Ned Parker."

"Why, Aunty?" said Content, a light blush only testifying her surprise at this address.

"Because he was a selfish feller; he always was. I believe some women are better off to marry, though I can't say but what I believe a single state is as good; but a woman that gets a real lazy, selfish feller gets pretty near the worst thing there is. I seemed kind of hard, 'Tenty, them days, but I had feelin' enough."

"I don't doubt but what you had, Aunt 'Viny; only one can't see far ahead, you know, when it rains. I'm sure I've been as happy as a clam these last six years, and I don't calculate to resk that by gettin' married, never. Besides, I've learned what you used to call the grass's lesson, pretty well."

Here Parson Goodyear interrupted the conversation, and it never was resumed; for the week after, Miss 'Viny died, and Content was left alone in her little house, "to battle with the world," as people say. But no conflict ensued, since it takes two to make a quarrel, and 'Tenty was on good terms with the Deerfield world. So she lived on, peaceful and peace-making, till forty found her as comely and as happy as ever, a source of perpetual wonder to the neighbors, who said of her, "She has got the dreadfullest faculty of gettin' along I ever see," and thereby solved the problem, for all except one, and that other one 'Tenty's opposite in every trait, Miss Mehitable Hall, Hannah-Ann's older sister, an old maid of the straitest sect, and one who was nowise sustained under the inflictions of life by the consciousness of enough money to support her, and friends to care for her approaching age.