Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio.

“CASH.”¹

Don’t think I’m going to perpetrate a monetary article. No fancy that way! I ignore anything approaching to a stock! I refer now to that omnipresent, omniscient, ubiquitous, express-train little victim, so baptized in the dry-goods stores, who hears nothing but the everlasting word cash dinned in his juvenile ears from matin to vespers; whose dangerous duty it is to rush through a crowd of expectant and impatient feminines, without suffering his jacket-buttons to become too intimately acquainted with the fringes of their shawls, or the laces of their mantillas! and to dodge so dexterously as not to knock down, crush under foot, or otherwise damage the string of juveniles that said women are bound to place as obstructions in said “Cash’s” way!

See him double, and turn, and twist, like a rabbit in a wood, while that word of command flies from one clerk’s lip to another. Poor, demented little Cash! Where is your anxious maternal? Who finds you in patience and shoe leather? Does your pillow ever suggest anything to your weary brain but pillarless quarters, and crossed sixpences, and faded bank bills? When do you find time, you poor little victim, to comb your hair, digest your victuals, and say your catechise? Do you ever look back with a sigh to the days of peppermints, peanuts and pinafores? Or forward, in the dim distance, to a vision of a long-tailed coat, a high-standing dickey, and no more “Cash,” save in your pantaloons’ pocket? Don’t you ever catch yourself wishing that a certain rib of Adam’s had never been subtracted from his paradisiacal side?

Poor, miserable little Cash! you have my everlasting sympathy! I should go shopping twenty times, where I now go once, didn’t it harrow up my feelings to see you driven on so, like a locomotive! “Here’s hoping” you may soon be made sensible of more than one meaning to the word change!

ONLY A CHILD

“Who is to be buried here?” said I to the sexton. “Only a child, ma’am.”

Only a child! Oh! had you ever been a mother – had you nightly pillowed that little golden head – had you slept the sweeter for that little velvet hand upon your breast – had you waited for the first intelligent glance from those blue eyes – had you watched its cradle slumbers, tracing the features of him who stole your girlish heart away – had you wept a widow’s tears over its unconscious head – had your desolate, timid heart gained courage from that little piping voice, to wrestle with the jostling crowd for daily bread – had its loving smiles and prattling words been sweet recompense for such sad exposure – had the lonely future been brightened by the hope of that young arm to lean upon, that bright eye for your guiding star – had you never framed a plan, or known a hope or fear, of which that child was not a part; – if there was naught else on earth left for you to love – if disease came, and its eye grew dim; and food, and rest, and sleep were forgotten in your anxious fears – if you paced the floor, hour by hour, with that fragile burden, when your very touch seemed to give comfort and healing to that little quivering frame – had the star of hope set at last – had you hung over its dying pillow, when the strong breast you should have wept on was in the grave, where your child was hastening – had you caught alone its last faint cry for the “help” you could not give – had its last fluttering sigh been breathed out on your breast – Oh! could you have said – “’Tis only a child?”

MR. PIPKIN’S IDEAS OF FAMILY RETRENCHMENT

Mrs. Pipkin, I am under the disagreeable necessity of informing you, that our family expenses are getting to be enormous. I see that carpet woman charged you a dollar for one day’s work. Why, that is positively a man’s wages; – such presumption is intolerable. Pity you did not make it yourself, Mrs. Pipkin; wives ought to lift their end of the yoke; that’s my creed.

Little Tom Pipkin.– Papa, may I have this bit of paper on the floor? it is your tailor’s bill – says, “$400 for your last year’s clothes.”

Mr. Pipkin.– Tom, go to bed, and learn never to interrupt your father when he is talking. Yes, as I was saying, Mrs. Pipkin, wives should hold up their end of the yoke; and it is high time there was a little retrenchment here; superfluities must be dispensed with.

Bridget.– Please, sir, there are three baskets of champagne just come for you, and four boxes of cigars.

Mr. Pipkin.– Will you please lock that door, Mrs. Pipkin, till I can get a chance to say what I have to say to you on this subject. I was thinking to-day, that you might dispense with your nursery maid, and take care of baby yourself. He don’t cry much, except nights; and since I’ve slept alone up stairs, I don’t hear the little tempest at all. It is really quite a relief – that child’s voice is a perfect ear-splitter.

I think I shall get you, too, to take charge of the marketing and providing, (on a stipulated allowance from me, of course,) it will give me so much more time to – attend to business, Mrs. Pipkin. I shall take my own dinners down town at the – House. I hear Stevens is an excellent “caterer;” (though that’s nothing to me, of course, as my only object in going is to meet business acquaintances from different parts of the Union, to drive a bargain, &c., &c.)

Well – it will cost you and the children little or nothing for your dinners. There’s nothing so disgusting to a man of refinement, like myself, as to see a woman fond of eating; and as to children, any fool knows they ought not to be allowed to stuff their skins, like little anacondas. Yes, our family expenses are enormous. My partner sighed like a pair of bellows at that last baby you had, Mrs. Pipkin; oh, it’s quite ruinous – but I can’t stop to talk now, I’m going to try a splendid horse which is offered me at a bargain – (too frisky for you to ride, my dear, but just the thing for me.)

You had better dismiss your nursery girl this afternoon; that will begin to look like retrenchment. Good-bye; if I am not home till late, don’t sit up for me, as I have ordered a supper at – House for my old friend, Tom Hillar, of New Orleans. We’ll drink this toast, my dear: “Here’s hoping the last little Pipkin may never have his nose put out of joint.”

A CHAPTER FOR NICE OLD FARMERS

Can anybody tell why country people so universally and pertinaciously persist in living in the rear of the house? Can anybody tell why the front door and windows are never opened, save on Fourth of July and at Thanksgiving time? Why Zedekiah, and Timothy, and Jonathan, and the old farmer himself, must go round the house in order to get into it? Why the whole family (oblivious of six empty rooms,) take their “vapor bath,” and their meals, simultaneously, in the vicinity of a red hot cooking range, in the dog-days? Why the village artist need paint the roof, and spout, and window frames bright crimson, and the doors the color of a mermaid’s tresses? Why the detestable sunflower (which I can never forgive “Tom Moore” for noticing) must always flaunt in the garden? Why the ungraceful prim poplar, fit emblem of a stiff old bachelor, is preferred to the swaying elm, or drooping willow, or majestic horse-chestnut.

I should like to pull down the green paper window-curtains, and hang up some of snowy muslin. I should like to throw wide open the hall door, and let the south wind play through. I should like to go out into the woods, and collect fresh, sweet wild-flowers to arrange in a vase, in place of those defunct dried grasses, and old-maid “everlastings.” I should like to show Zedekiah how to nail together some bits of board, for an embryo lounge; I should like to stuff it with cotton, and cover it with a neat “patch.” I should like to cushion the chairs after the same fashion. Then I should like, when the white-haired old farmer came panting up the road at twelve o’clock, with his scythe hanging over his arm, to usher him into that cool, comfortable room, set his bowl of bread and milk before him, and after he had discussed it, coax him (instead of tilting back on the hind legs of a hard chair,) to take a ten-minutes nap on my “model” sofa, while I kept my eye on the clouds, to see that no thunder shower played the mischief with his hay.

I should like to place a few common-sense, practical books on the table, with some of our fine daily and weekly papers. You may smile; but these inducements, and the comfortable and pleasant air of the apartment, would bring the family oftener together after the day’s toil, and by degrees they would lift the covers of the books, and turn over the newspapers. Constant interchange of thought, feeling and opinion, with discussions of the important and engrossing questions of the day, would of course necessarily follow.

The village tavern-keeper would probably frown upon it; but I will venture to predict for the inmates of the farm-house a growing love for “home,” and an added air of intelligence and refinement, of which they themselves might possibly be unconscious.

MADAME ROUILLON’S “MOURNING SALOON.”

“You needn’t make that dress ‘deep mourning,’ Hetty; the lady who ordered it said it was only her sister for whom she was to ‘mourn.’ A three-quarter’s length vail will answer; and I should introduce a few jet bugles round the bonnet trimmings. And, by the way, Hetty, Mrs. La Fague’s husband has been dead now nearly two months, so that new dress of hers will admit of a little alleviation in the style of trimming – a few knots of love-ribbon on the boddice will have a softening effect; and you must hem a thin net vail for her bonnet; – it’s almost time for her to be ‘out of mourning.’

– “And, Hetty, run down to Stewart’s, right away, and see if he has any more of those grief-bordered pocket-handkerchiefs. Mr. Grey’s servant said the border must be full an inch deep, as his master wished it for his wife’s funeral, and it is the eighth time within eight years that the poor afflicted man has suffered a similar calamity. Remember, Hetty, – an inch deep, with a tomb-stone and a weeping-willow embroidered on the corner, with this motto: ‘Hope never dies;’ – and, Hetty, be sure you ask him what is the latest style for ‘half-mourning’ for grandmothers, mothers-in-law, country cousins, and poor relations. Dépèchezvous, Hetty, for you have six ‘weepers’ (weeds) to take off the six Mr. Smiths’ hats. Yes, I know you ‘only put them on last week;’ but they are going to Philadelphia, where nobody knows them, and, of course, it isn’t necessary to ‘mourn’ for their mother there.

– “What are you staring at, child? You are as primitive as your fore-mother Eve. This ‘mourning’ is probably an invention of Satan to divert people’s minds from solemn subjects, but that’s nothing to me, you know; so long as it fills my pocket, I’m in league with his Majesty.”

FASHION IN FUNERALS

“It has become unfashionable in New-York for ladies to attend funerals to the grave. Even the mother may not accompany the little lifeless form of her beloved child beyond the threshold without violating the dread laws of Fashion.”

Are there such mothers? Lives there one who, at Fashion’s bidding, stands back, nor presses her lips to the little marble form that once lay warm and quivering beneath her heart-strings? – who with undimmed eye recalls the trusting clasp of that tiny hand, the loving glance of that vailed eye, the music of that merry laugh – its low, pained moan, or its last fluttering heart-quiver? – who would not (rather than strange hands should touch the babe,) herself robe its dainty limbs for burial? – who shrinks not, starts not, when the careless, business hand would remove the little darling from its cradle-bed, where loving eyes so oft have watched its rosy slumbers, to its last, cold, dreamless pillow? – who lingers not, when all have gone, and vainly strives, with straining eye, to pierce below that little fresh laid mound? – who, when a merry group go dancing by, stops not, with sudden thrill, to touch some sunny head, or gaze into some soft blue eye, that has oped afresh the fount of her tears, and sent to the troubled lips the murmuring heart-plaint, “Would to God I had died for thee, my child – my child?” – who, when the wintry blast comes eddying by, sleeps not, because she cannot fold to her warm breast the little lonely sleeper in the cold churchyard? And oh! is there one, who, with such “treasure laid up in Heaven,” clings not the less to earth, strives not the more to keep her spirit undefiled, fears not the less the dim, dark valley, cheered by a cherub voice, inaudible save to the dying mother? Oh, stony-eyed, stony-hearted, relentless Fashion! turn for us day into night, if thou wilt; deform our women; half clothe, with flimsy fabric, our victim children; wring the last penny from the sighing, overtasked, toiling husband; banish to the backwoods thy country cousin, Comfort; reign supreme in the banquet hall; revel undisputed at the dance; – but when that grim guest, whom none invite – whom none dare deny – strides, with defiant front, across our threshold, stand back, thou heartless harlequin, and leave us alone with our dead: so shall we list the lessons those voiceless lips should teach us —

 
“All is vanity.”
 

HOUSEHOLD TYRANTS

“A husband may kill a wife gradually, and be no more questioned than the grand seignor who drowns a slave at midnight.” —Thackeray, on Household Tyrants.

Oh! Mr. Thackeray! I ought to have known from experience, that beauty and brains never travel in company – but I was disenchanted when I first saw your nose, and I did say that you were too stout to look intellectual. But I forgive you in consideration of the above paragraph, which, for truth and candor, ought to be appended to the four Gospels.

I’m on the marrow bones of my soul to you, Mr. Thackeray. I honor you for “turning State’s evidence” against your own culprit-sex. If there’s any little favor I can do for you, such as getting you naturalized, (for you are a sight too cute and clever for an Englishman,) I’ll fly round and get the documents made out for you to-morrow.

I tell you, Mr. Thackeray, the laws over here allow husbands to break their wives’ hearts as much as they like, so long as they don’t break their heads. So the only way we can get along, is to allow them to scratch our faces, and then run to the police court, and shew “his Honor” that Mr. Caudle can “make his mark.”

Why – if we were not cunning, we should get circumvented all the time by these domestic Napoleons. Yes, indeed; we sleep with one eye open, and “get up early in the morning,” and keep our arms a-kimbo.

– By-the-way, Mr. Thackeray, what do you think of us, as a people? – taking us “by and large,” as our honest farmers say. Pretty tall nation for a growing one; don’t you think so? Smart men – smarter women – good broad streets – no smoking or spitting allowed in ’em – houses all built with an eye to architectural beauty – newspapers don’t tell how many buttons you wear on your waistcoat – Jonathan never stares at you, as if you were an imported hyena, or stirs you up with the long pole of criticism, to see your size and hear your roar. Our politicians never whip each other on the floor of Congress, and grow black in the face because their choler chokes them! No mushroom aristocracy over here – no “coats of arms” or liveried servants: nothing of that sham sort, in our “great and glorious country,” as you have probably noticed. If you are “round takin’ notes,” I’ll jog your English elbow now and then. Ferns have eyes – and they are not green, either.

WOMEN AND MONEY

“A wife shouldn’t ask her husband for money at meal-times.” —Exchange.

By no manner of means; nor at any other time; because, it is to be hoped, he will be gentlemanly enough to spare her that humiliating necessity. Let him hand her his porte-monnaie every morning, with carte-blanche to help herself. The consequence would be, she would lose all desire for the contents, and hand it back, half the time without abstracting a single sou.

It’s astonishing men have no more diplomacy about such matters. I should like to be a husband! There are wives whom I verily believe might be trusted to make way with a ten dollar bill without risk to the connubial donor! I’m not speaking of those doll-baby libels upon womanhood, whose chief ambition is to be walking advertisements for the dressmaker; but a rational, refined, sensible woman, who knows how to look like a lady upon small means; who would both love and respect a man less for requiring an account of every copper; but who, at the same time, would willingly wear a hat or garment that is “out of date,” rather than involve a noble, generous-hearted husband in unnecessary expenditures.

I repeat it – “It isn’t every man who has a call to be a husband.” Half the married men should have their “licenses” taken away, and the same number of judicious bachelors put in their places. I think the attention of the representatives should be called to this. They can’t expect to come down to town and peep under all the ladies’ bonnets the way they do, and have all the newspapers free gratis, and two dollars a day besides, without “paying their way!”

It’s none of my business, but I question whether their wives, whom they left at home, stringing dried apples, know how spruce they look in their new hats and coats, or how facetious they grow with their landlady’s daughter; or how many of them pass themselves off for bachelors, to verdant spinsters. Nothing truer than that little couplet of Shakspeare’s—

 
“When the cat’s away
The mice will play.”
 

THE SICK BACHELOR

Here I am, a doomed man – booked for a fever, in this gloomy room, up four flights of stairs; nothing to look at but one table, two chairs, and a cobweb; pulse racing like a locomotive; head throbbing as if it were hooped with iron; mouth as parched as Ishmael’s in the desert; not a bell-rope within reach; sun pouring in through those uncurtained windows, hot enough to singe off my eye-lashes; all my confidential letters lying loose on the table, and I couldn’t get up to them if you held one of Colt’s revolvers to my head. All my masculine friends (?) are parading Broadway, I suppose; peeping under the pretty girls’ bonnets, or drinking “sherry cobblers.” A sherry cobbler! Bacchus! what a luxury! I believe Satan suggested the thought to me.

Heigh-ho! I suppose the Doctor (whom they have sent for) will come before long; some great, pompous Æsculapius, with an owl phiz, a gold-headed cane, an oracular voice, and callous heart and hands; who will first manipulate my wrist, and then take the latitude and longitude of my tongue; then, he will punch me in my ribs, and torment me with more questions than there are in the Assembly’s Catechism; then, he’ll bother me for writing materials, to scratch off a hieroglyphic humbug prescription, ordering five times as much medicine as I need; then, I shall have to pay for it; then, ten to one, the apothecary’s boy will put up poison, by mistake! Cæsar! how my head spins round; Hippodrome racing is nothing to it.

Hist! there’s the Doctor. No! it is that little unregenerate cub, my landlady’s pet boy, with a bran new drum (as I’m a sinner), upon which he is beating a crucifying tattoo. If I only had a boot-jack to throw at him. No! that won’t do: his mother wouldn’t make my gruel. I’ll bribe him with a sixpence, to keep the peace. The little embryo Jew! he says he won’t do it under a quarter! Twitted by a little pinafore! I, Tom Haliday, six feet in my stockings! I shall go frantic.

“Doctor is coming!” Well, let him come. I’m as savage as if I’d just dined off a cold missionary. I’ll pretend to be asleep, and let old Pill-box experiment.

How gently he treads: how soft his hand is: how cool and delicious his touch! How tenderly he parts my hair over my throbbing temples! His magnetic touch thrills every drop of blood in my veins: it is marvellous how soothing it is. I feel as happy as a humming-bird in a lily cup, drowsy with honeydew. Now he’s moved away. I hear him writing a prescription. I’ll just take a peep and see what he looks like. Cæsar Aggripina! if it isn’t a Female Physician! dainty as a Peri —and my beard three days old! What a bust! (Wonder how my hair looks?) What a foot and ankle! What shoulders; what a little round waist. Fever? I’ve got twenty fevers, and the heart-complaint besides. What the mischief sent that little witch here? She will either kill or cure me, pretty quick.

Wonder if she has any more masculine patients? Wonder if they are handsome? Wonder if she lays that little dimpled hand on their foreheads, as she did on mine? Now she has done writing, I’ll shut my eyes and groan, and then, may be, she will pet me some more; bless her little soul!

She says, “poor fellow!” as she holds my wrist, “his pulse is too quick.” In the name of Cupid, what does she expect? She says, as she pats my forehead with her little plump fingers, “’Sh – ’sh! Keep cool.” Lava and brimstone! does she take me for an iceberg?

Oh, Cupid! of all your devices, this feminine doctoring for a bachelor, is the ne plus ultra of witchcraft. If I don’t have a prolonged “run of fever,” my name isn’t Tom Haliday!

She’s gone! and – I’m gone, too!