CHILDREN, God bless them! Who can help loving them? Children, God bless them! are the only beings for whom we have no “imperfect sympathies.” We love them through and through. There is nothing conventional in the hearty laugh of a child. The smile of a child is unsuspectable of artifice. I once corrected one of my little ones, and put him to bed, for having been stubborn at his letters. Then I waited until he fell asleep, and then I watched beside him until he slumbered out his sorrows. When he opened his eyes, he stretched out his little arms, smiled up in my face, and forgave me. The Lord forgive me for the whaling I gave him! I owe him an apology, which I intend 133 to make so soon as he is old enough to understand it. There is nothing so odious to the mind of a child as injustice, and young married people are prone to expect too much, and exact too much of their eldest born. If then we are unjustly severe from our want of experience, it seems to me there is something due, some reparation on our part, due to the individual whose feelings we have injured. If we lose temper with a gentleman six feet high, and call him hard names, we often find it convenient to apologize. It seems to me that three feet of wounded sensibility is, at least, entitled to respectful consideration. What do you think of that, Mrs. Sparrowgrass? Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she thought it was true. “How much,” I continued, reflectively, “children occupy the father’s mind.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, “and the mother’s.” “Children,” said I, “are to the father as weights are to the clock — they keep him steady and they keep him busy.”
Mrs. Sparrowgrass looked up from the plaid patch of new gingham she was needling into the breast of a faded gingham apron, and nodded significantly: “True,” said she, “you are the hour hand, but I am the minute hand.”
134As this was the most brilliant remark Mrs. S. had made for months, I was silent for some time.
“My dear,” said I, after a pause, “speaking of children, I wish you would not teach the young ones so many of your Philadelphia phrases.” Mrs. Sparrowgrass looked surprised. “You know, my dear,” I continued, “how proud I am this year, and justly proud, too, of our musk-melons?” “Well?” “And when Uncle Sourgrass was here the other day, what should Ivanhoe do but ask him to go out to look at the cantelopes.” “Well, what of that?” said Mrs. S. “Cantelope,” said I, “in this part of the world, is the name of a very inferior species of melon, and I would not have had Uncle Sourgrass think we had nothing but cantelopes in the garden, upon any account.” “You wouldn’t?” “No! You call all kinds of melons ‘cantelopes’ in Philadelphia, but permit me to say that it is a local error, which should not be transplanted and trained in juvenile minds of the banks on the Hudson.” Mrs. Sparrowgrass was much impressed by this horticultural figure. “Then, when visitors come, you always take them to see that patch of ‘Queen Margarets,’ and everybody gets disappointed to find they are only China 135 asters.” “Well?” “And there is another thing too Mrs. Sparrowgrass; next Christmas Santa Claus, if you please — no Kriss Kringle. Santa Claus is the patron saint, Mrs. Sparrowgrass, of the New Netherlands, and the ancient Dorp of Yonkers; he it is who fills the fireside stockings; he only can come down Westchester chimneys, and I would much prefer not to have the children’s minds, and the flue, occupied with his Pennsylvania prototype. And, since I must speak of it, why will you always call a quail a partridge? All you Philadelphians will call a quail a partridge. Did you ever read Audubon?” Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she never had. “Wilson?” “Never.” “Charles Bonaparte?” (A dead silence.) “Nor any other work on ornithology?” Mrs. Sparrowgrass said there was a little bundle of remnants and patches in the upper part of the closet, which she wished I would reach down. “A quail,” I continued, as I reached down the bundle, “is not a partridge, my dear.” Mrs. Sparrowgrass said the next time we had partridges she would call them all quails, as she supposed I knew which was correct better than she did. With that she unrolled 136 the bundle and drew therefrom a long, triangular piece of faded, mouse-colored silk.
There are moments when I feel as if I would like to launch into a little sea of language, and spread a nautilus sail in delicate air. The great, three-deckers of thought, the noble orators and splendid statesmen, require the broader and more turbulent ocean for their ponderous movements. But for me, who have seen something of the eloquent world, from the magnates of the senate, in palmy days, down to the present windy representatives of the great metropolis in Common Council assembled, there seems to be a more captivating charm in those lighter crafts that float in safety over the shallow of polite conversation, and venture securely amid the rocks and whirlpools of social argument. Who has not felt as if he would like to preach for half an hour or so upon some favorite text or topic? Who has not, in some auspicious instant, been so fortified in argument as to absolutely suffer for the stimulant of opposition, to enable him to unload his mind and be comfortable? Mrs. Sparrowgrass, by an ill-timed, brilliant remark, had broken the thread of my discourse upon children, and she had 137 put an end to my argument against local phrases, by requesting me to reach down a piebald bundle of patches. But from that roll of remnants she had drawn froth a long, triangular piece of mouse-colored silk. The tint was suggestive. It was a text, a thesis, that would bear amplifying. So at once I started off. “My dear, do you know I have long felt as if I would like to be once of the society called ‘Friends?’” Mrs. Sparrowgrass replied, she did not know I had contemplated so serious a departure from the rules of propriety. “My dear,” I said, “no person has a greater feeling of respect and regard than I have for the sect that so unjustly bears the name of
“There is something, in the very aspect of a ‘Friend,’ suggestive of peace and good will. Verily, if it were not for the broad-brimmed hat, and the straight coat, which the world’s people call ‘shad,’ I would be a Quaker. But for the life of me I cannot resist the effect of the grotesque and the odd. I must smile, oftenest at myself. I could not keep within drab garments and the bounds of 138 propriety. Incongruity would read me out of meeting. To be reined in under a plain hat would be impossible. Besides, I doubt whether any one accustomed to the world’s pleasures could be a Quaker. Who, once familiar with Shakspeare and the opera, could resist a favorite air on a hand organ, or pass, undisturbed, ‘Hamlet!’ in capital letters on a play bill? To be a Quaker, one must be a Quaker born. In spite of Sydney Smith, there is such a thing as a Quaker baby. In fact, I have seen it — a diminutive demurity, a stiff-plait in the bud. It had round blue eyes, and a face that expressed resignation in spite of the stomach-ache. It had no lace on its baby-cap, no embroidered nonsense on its petticoat. It had no beads, no ribbons, no rattle, no bells, no coral. Its plain garments were innocent of inserting and edging; its socks were not of the color of the world’s people’s baby. It was as punctiliously silent as a silent meeting, and sat up rigidly in its mother’s lap, twirling its thumbs and cutting its teeth without a gum-ring. It never cried, nor clapped its hands, and would not have said ‘papa’ if it had been tied to the stake, When it went to sleep it was hushed without a song, and they laid it in a drab-colored 139 cradle without a rocker. Don’t interrupt me, I have seen it, Mrs. Sparrowgrass!
“Something I have observed too, remarkably, strikingly Quakeristic. The young maidens and the young men never seem inclined to be fat. Such a thing as a maiden lady, nineteen years of age, with a pound of superfluous flesh is not known among Friends. The young men sometimes grow outside the limits of a straight coat, and when they do, they quietly change into the habits of ordinary men. Either they are read out of meeting, or else they lose their hold when they get too round and too ripe, and just drop off. Remarkably Quakeristic, too, is an exemption the Friends appear to enjoy from diseases and complaints peculiar to other people. Who ever saw a Quaker marked with the small-pox, or a Quaker with the face-ache? Who ever saw a cross-eyed Quaker, or a decided case of mumps under a broad-brimmed hat? Nobody. Mrs. Sparrowgrass, don’t interrupt me. Doubtless much of this is owing to their cleanliness, duplex cleanliness, purity of body and soul. I saw a face in the cars, not long since — a face that had calmly endured the storms of seventy yearly meetings. It was a hot, dry day, the window were all open; 140 dust was pouring into the cars; eye-brows, eye-lashes, ends of hair, mustachios, wigs, coat-collars, sleeves, waistcoats, and trowsers of the world’s people, were touched with a fine tawny color. Their faces had a general appearance of humidity in streaks, now and then tattooed with a black cinder; but there, within a satin bonnet (Turk’s satin), a bonnet made after the fashion of Professor Espy’s patent ventilator, was a face of seventy years, calm as a summer morning, smooth as an infant’s, without one speck or stain of dust, without one touch of perspiration, or exasperation, Mrs. S. No, nor was there, on the cross-pinned ’kerchief, nor on the elaborately plain dress, one atom of earthy contact; the very air did seem to respect that aged Quakeress.
“Mrs. Sparrowgrass, don’t interrupt me. Did you ever, my dear, ‘get the writings of John Woolman by heart, and love the early Quakers,’ as beloved Charles Lamb recommends? No? Then let me advise you to read the book, and learn something of one who had felt the efficacy of that power, which, as he says ‘prepares the creature to stand like a trumpet, through which the Lord speaks to his people.’ Here is a little story of his early 141 childhood, which I want you to read to the children now and then.
“’Once going to a neighbor’s house, I saw, on the way, a Robin sitting on her nest, and, as I came near, she went off; but, having young ones, flew about, and, with many cries, expressed her concern for them. I stood and threw stones at her, till, one striking her, she fell down dead. At first, I was pleased with the exploit; but, after a few minutesm was seized with horror; as having, in a sportive way, killed an innocent creature while she was careful of her young. I beheld her lying dead, and thought those young ones, for which she was so careful, must now perish for the want of their dam to nourish them; and, after some painful considerations on the subject, I climbed up the tree, took all the young birds, and killed them, supposing that better than to leave them to pine away and die miserably; and believed, in this case, that Scripture proverb was fulfilled, “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” I then went on my errand; but, for some hours, could think of nothing else but the cruelties I had committed, and was much troubled. Thus He, whose tender mercies are above all his works, hath placed a principle in 142 the human mind, which incites to exercise goodness toward every living creature; and this being singly attended to, people become tender-hearted and sympathizing; but being frequently and totally rejected, the mind becomes shut up in a contrary disposition.’
“Don’t interrupt me, my dear. And Thomas Lurting, too; his adventures are well worth reading to the children. A Quaker sailor, the mate of a Quaker ship, manned with a Quaker crew, every one of which had a straight collar to his pea-jacket, and a tarpaulin, with at least three feet diameter of brim. Thomas Lurting, whose ship was captured by Algerine pirates after a hard chase, and who welcomed them on board as if they had been brothers. Then, when the Quaker vessel and the Algerine were separated by a storm, how friendly those salt-water non-resistants were to their captors on board their own vessel; with what alacrity did they go aloft to take in sail, or to shake out a reef, until those heathen pirates left the handling of the ship entirely to their broad-brimmed brethren, and went to sleep in the cabin; and then, what did the Quakers do but first shut the cabin doors, and fasten them, so that the Turks could not get out again! 143 And then, fearless of danger, they steered for the Barbary coast, and made those fierce, mustached pirates get into a small boat (they had been for ever locked up else), and rowed them to the shore; and when the Turks found themselves in a small boat with but a small crew of broad-brims, and gave signs of mutiny, what did the brave Thomas Lurting? Lay violent hands on them? Draw a cutlass, or cock a pistol? No, he merely struck the leader ‘a pretty heavy blow with a boat-hook, telling him to sit still and be quiet,’ as he says himself, ‘thinking it as better to stun a man than to kill him.’ And so he got the pirates on shore, and in their own country. Brave Thomas Lurting! True? Of course, it is true.
“The most singular spectacle I ever witnessed was the burial-service over a Quaker, in a Catholic cathedral. He had formerly been the rigidest of his sect — a man who had believed the mire and the crozier to be little better than the horns and tail of the evil one — a man who had looked upon church music and polygamy with equal abhorrence, and who would rather have been burnt himself than burn a Roman candle on the anniversary of the national jubilee. Yet, by one of those inexplicable 144 inconsistencies, peculiar to mere men, but rare among Quakers, he had seceded from the faith of his fathers, and become one of the most zealous of papists.
“The grand altar was radiant with wax tapers; the priests on either side, in glittering dresses, were chanting responses; the censer boys, in red and white garments, swung the smoke of myrrh and frankincense into the air, and as the fragrant mist rolled up and hung in rosy clouds under the lofty stained-glass windows, the great organ panted forth the requiem. Marvellously contrasted with this pomp and display appeared the crowd of broad-brims and stiff-plaits, the friends and relatives of the deceased. Never, perhaps, had such an audience been gathered in such a place in the world before. The scene, to the priests themselves, must have been novel and striking. Instead of the usual display of reverence, instead of the customary show of bare heads and bended knees, every Quaker stood stoutly on his legs, with his broad-brimmed hat clinging to his head as strongly as his faith to his heart. Disciplined as they had been in many a silent meeting, during the entire mass not one of their broad-brims moved an inch until the service 145 was over. Then the coffin was opened and solemnly, silently, decorously, the brethren and sisters moved towards it to look, for the last time, upon the face of the seceder. Then silently, solemnly, decorously, they moved from the Popish temple. ‘I saw,’ said one of the sisters, ‘that he (meaning the departed ex-Quaker) had on worked slippers with silver soles, what does thee think that was for?’ The person spoken to wore a hat with a goodly brim. Without moving his head, he rolled around, sideways, two Quakeristic eyes, large blue eyes, with little inky dots of pupils, like small black islands in oceans of buttermilk, and said, awfully — ‘I suppose they was to walk through Purgatory with.’”
“I do not believe it,” said Mrs. Sparrowgrass. ‘Nevertheless, my dear, it is true,” I replied; “true, every word of it. You have not seen all the world yet, my dear; it is a very large place — a very large place, indeed, Mrs. Sparrowgrass.”