Phemie Frost's Experiences Part 5

Do not start and say that Phmie Frost is ready to give up her mission; because she isn't of that sort. Her hand is on the plough--they spell it _plow_ here, which takes away half the strength of that agricultural word--on the plough, is she, a female, to turn back because rocks and roots choke up the furrow? Not if Miss Frost knows anything of herself!

Speaking of female modesty, between my little cousin and that marble girl, the poor naked creature seemed to have the most of it. She did scrouch down and try to hide herself behind herself, as if she was ashamed that the man who made her had forgot to cover her up a little.

But the live girl did not seem to feel for her a mite; in fact, I think she enjoyed seeing her scrouch, because of the foreshortenings, you know.

It's of no use denying it, I did feel down in the mouth about this girl; and seeing my duty clear, determined to do it or perish in the attempt.

Once more I stood in front of that "palatial residence," and, with a hand made firm by a powerful sense of duty, pulled the silver k.n.o.b in the jamb of the door. The same finified youngster came and asked me with his saucy eyes what I wanted there. This time I had written out a square piece of paper, on which he had the pleasure of reading: "Miss Phmie Frost, Home Missionary and Special Plenipotentiary from the Society of Infinite Progress, Sprucehill, Vermont." "Think," says I, when I handed him the paper, "if this don't fetch them all down a notch or two, nothing will."

And it did!

Yes, I have the pleasure of saying pretension and pomposity do have a wonderful effect here in New York. I don't know whether it was the missionary or the plenipotentiary that brought my cousin to her oats, but rather think it was the latter--having a foreign tw.a.n.g to it, of course, it impressed her aristocratically.

The waiter-man took me into the drawing-room, as he called it, but why, no human being could have told; for there wasn't a sign of drawing paper, pencil, nor painting things in sight. In fact, it was the self-same room that I went into the last time I was there. A little darker and more sunsetty, because the red curtains swept close, and blinds were rolled down under the lace. There was that marble girl, too, a-looking at me as if half-scared to death; but in that light she seemed dressed in a veil of pink gauze, and looked just lovely. There being no man by I really could have kissed her, she seemed so sweet, and so awfully ashamed of herself huddled down as if she longed to creep out of sight.

The door opened, and that fellow came in simpering like a chessy cat, and asked if I would be so good as to walk up to the boudor.

"To the what?" says I.

"To the ladies' boudor," says he, a turning his head, and trying to choke off a laugh. "This way!"

I took my satchel from a table all framed in gold, and checkered with precious stones, where I had laid it down. Then, bowing my head and lifting my forefinger, told that servile creature to proceed, with an air of command that quenched his saucy smile in no time.

Up the stairs he went, and I followed after; treading a carpet that gave to the feet like a meadow in its first spring gra.s.s. Through an open door I saw my cousin lifting herself up from a sofa, covered with blue silk and open-worked lace. Then she dawdled towards me with one hand out, and the laziest smile you ever saw about her mouth.

"Cousin Emily," says I, "how do you do?"

"My dear Miss Frost," says she, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance."

Happy to make my acquaintance, and I her first cousin. Did you ever?

At first I _was_ taken aback, and felt as if I should choke. Hadn't I learned that great white creature her letters? Hadn't I spent dollars on her for slates and pencils, besides taking her to the maple camps when she was a little girl, and giving her no end of sweet sap to drink. Who was it but me that turned down her first over-and-over seam, and gave her a tentie-tointy silver thimble to take the st.i.tches with. I wonder what she did with it? Now she was happy to make my acquaintance, and dragged a double winrow of worked flounces, topped off with a muslin skirt and scarlet training jacket, across the room to tell me so. Our mothers were sisters; pray remember that!

"Take that seat," says she, a-dropping down to the sofa as a great white hen turkey settles onto its nest. "How long have you been in the city?

Do you make anything of a visit? So thoughtful and kind of you to give me an early call."

There I sat, straight as a sign-post, with my satchel in my lap, and both hands on that, riling up like an Irish girl's coffee, and feeling the wrath within me grow stronger and stronger while she settled back and half-shut her eyes, and seemed to be quite satisfied that she had done her best. I could see that her half-shut eyes were turned on my alpaca dress, which was a trifle dusty, and on my cotton gloves, that were clean and whole, at any rate. While she examined them, I took an observation of her. Mercy, how she has changed! Five times the hair she ever had before hung in great, heavy braided loops down her back. There must be some way of making the hair grow, 'specially here in York, that we never heard of. And her figure, which was slim and graceful as the droop of a willow when she married, has swelled out fearfully behind, which makes her seem to stoop, and gives one the most humpy idea of a camel in motion of anything I know, which, being Scriptural, is, I dare say, the only religious idea she has kept firm to.

"You called the other day," says she. "I was so sorry not to have seen you; but I was dressing to go out. Still, you saw my little girl?"

"Yes," says I, "I saw your little girl; and, to tell you the honest truth, that is what brings me here now. I haven't had a minute's rest since I was here. Why, Cousin Emily, I expected to see a child. Instead of that--"

She roused up at this, opened her eyes wide, and interrupted me.

"Instead of that," says she, turning a great gold bracelet on her arm, and smiling as if what she was saying swelled her out with pride--"instead of that, you found a finished young lady. No wonder you were surprised."

"A finished young lady!" says I, riling into strength. "That is what no child ever can be; and let me tell you, the attempt to force one into such an unnatural creature is abominable. You can polish every bit of the modesty and innocence of childhood out of a little girl; but all that you can get for it is affectation and self-sufficient impertinence, becoming neither to the child nor the woman. Why, cousin, the little creature I saw in your parlor--sent there, as she said, to _entertain a gentleman_--was just an absurdity to him, and to me something dreadful.

I asked myself what a child like that would become at forty years of age. Why, cousin, when she is at her meridian she will feel herself at least a hundred and fifty. You have cut off all the bloom and richness of a young life; you have made a dainty little monster of her--swept away all companions.h.i.+p with children, and made it presumption and impertinence when she attempts to force herself among her elders. I could not be so cruel to a dog as you have been to that child."

Cousin Emily woke up now with a vengeance. Her sleepy eyes flashed lightning. "Cruel!" says she. "I cruel to my only daughter? Why, there is not a child in America who has had such care--such abundant chances for improvement. She has been to the most expensive schools."

"Exactly," says I.

"She has had masters at home--music, dancing, the languages--"

"Exactly," says I.

"Things that I never thought of learning she has mastered."

"Just so," says I.

"She had a French nurse before she could speak. No expense has been spared by her father. I never had such chances; and we are determined to give her a splendid education. In fact, she might come out this season, so far as that is concerned; but I have resolved to be rigid--not a day before she is seventeen. Then her education will be complete."

"Her education complete at seventeen! Why, Cousin Emily, a woman's education is _never_ complete. At the best schools we get but a dreamy sort of idea of the things we must bring all the faculties of a well-regulated mind to understand in after years. A well-educated woman is one who studies and learns something every day of her life--who thinks about what she sees, and acts upon what she knows."

Cousin Emily lifted up both hands, all covered with s.h.i.+ning rings, as if to choke me off. I stopped. Far be it from Phmie Frost to force the opinions of our Society upon unwilling ears; but I lifted my forefinger in solemn admonishment, and says I:

"Oh, Cousin Emily, Cousin Emily, has it got so that you hold up both hands against common-sense!"

"Not against common-sense," says she, "but against your uncommonly long sentences. Why, Miss Frost, it is like our old-fas.h.i.+oned country preaching."

"Which has died out of your heart, I dare say. Oh, Emily, Emily, what would your sainted mother, my aunt, say?"

This brought the misguided woman to her tears. She sat up on that lace-silk sofa, straight and listening, as I have seen her many a time on the a b c bench at school, when her little feet couldn't touch the floor.

"Cousin Phmie," says she, "I am trying to do what is right."

"I hope so," says I, with tears of thankfulness in my eyes, for the "Cousin Phmie" went straight to my heart. "But my mind isn't quite equal to more of this conversation this morning. The next time I come this way we shall both be more like our natural selves."

With that I tightened my cotton gloves, took up my satchel, and left that house, feeling that I had paved the way to a good work hereafter.

V.

POOR CHILDREN.

Are there no genuine children among the poor of New York?

Beloved sisters, your question wrings the heart in my bosom. I asked it of myself this very morning, and resolved to investigate.

I hadn't found a child that could be called a child outside a perambulator, which means a little carriage pushed by an Irish girl, with a cap on, along the avenues. So I took my mission down among the tenement-houses. There I found young ones on the sidewalks, the doorsteps, and in the gutters, thick as gra.s.shoppers in a dry pasture lot, all hard at work, trying to play. But the play seemed more like fighting than fun. Two girls stopped me on the sidewalk, swinging the dirty end of a rope, while another tried to jump it, but only tripped up, and went at it again. Shaking her loose hair, and--yes, I say it with tears in my eyes--swearing at the other two.

I laid my hand on her head, and gently expostulated. She was a little mite of a girl, with a sharp, knowing face. The first word she spoke made my nerves creep. Why, that little thing had the wickedness of an old sinner on her baby mouth, and couldn't speak it out plain yet.

Oh! my dear sister, and you, my friend, in the great course of infinite progress and general perfection, had you been with me, almost broken-hearted among that rabble of children, who will never, never know what childhood is, the last pound of b.u.t.ter and dozen of eggs in our village would be freely given to support my mission here. Barefooted, bareheaded, barelegged, and, it seemed to be, bare of soul, these little wretches swarmed around me when I kindly asked the baby girls not to swear, all making faces at me. The boys, that sat with their feet in the gutters, flung away the oyster-sh.e.l.ls and lobster claws they had just raked from an ash-barrel, and began to hoot at me. One little wretch--forgive me for calling names--not more than five years old, had a cigar in his mouth half as long as his own arm. When I stooped down to take it from him, he gave a great puff right into my eyes, and scampered off, with his dirty fingers twirling about his face like the handle of a coffee-mill.

As a New England woman, whose duty, I take it, is to set everybody right, I wasn't to be put down by a boy like that, but caught him by the collar of his jacket, s.n.a.t.c.hed the cigar from his lips, and flung it into the gutter, where it sizzled itself out. Then I lifted my forefinger as I do in Sunday-cla.s.s, and began to admonish him. But instead of listening, he got the skirt of my alpaca dress between his teeth and ground a great hole in it, swearing like a trooper betweenwhiles.