The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern Part 10

Why, f.a.n.n.y Fern! Did you ever hear any old saying about practising and preaching? How came you ever to think of this sentiment? Oh, f.a.n.n.y!

you are a born _writer of fiction_. Didn't you prove your genius for that sort of thing when you wrote the following 'Fern.'

"Well, now, do you know I did that, till I came very near being mobbed in the street for a curiosity? I was verdant enough to believe that 'honesty was the best policy.' The first astonisher that I had, was on the occasion of the visit of a vain old lady to our house, before I was out of pantalettes. Her bonnet was stuck full of artificial flowers, looking as much out of place as a wreath of rosebuds on a mummy! Some such thought was pa.s.sing through my mind, as I stood looking at her--when, mistaking my protracted gaze for one of _admiration_, she faced square about, and asked me if I didn't think they were _becoming_? '_No ma'am_,' said I, never flinching a hair.

_Didn't_ I get a boxed ear for that?

"Well, I didn't make out much better in my subsequent attempts to 'speak the truth;' and what visionary ever concocted such nonsense, _I'm_ at a loss to know.

"I'd like to put the question to you, and _you_, and YOU, and YOU!--Would the wheels of creation ever 'go ahead' without one everlasting intolerable squeak, if they were not 'oiled up' constantly with flattery? No s.h.i.+rking, now! no dodging the question! OF COURSE they wouldn't! I humbly confess I ain't broke in myself, as much as I ought to be, but I'm learning by degrees! I can't help looking over my shoulder occasionally when anybody says a pretty thing to me to see if 'cloven foot' is anywhere round! but that will wear off in time. It almost killed me the first time I did the agreeable to a person I had no more respect for than Judas Iscariot, but I lived through it, though I don't take to it naturally!

"I've a tell-tale trick of blus.h.i.+ng, too, when I'm being delivered of a lie, that stands very much in my light. I'm afraid there's some defect in my organization. I've applied to two or three young physicians, but they only aggravate my complaint. I'm thinking of putting myself under the tuition of ----; if I don't 'take my degree'

THEN, I'll _give up_ and done with it!

"Oh dear! it's an awful thing to grow up! to find your catechise, and Jack the Giant-Killer, and your Primer, and Mother Goose, all a humbug! To come across a wolf making 'sheep's eyes' at a lamb; to be obliged to make a chalk-mark on the saints to know them from the sinners; to see husbands, well--THERE! when I think of THEM, I must wait till a new dictionary is made before I can express my indignation! Wish I'd been introduced to Adam before he found out it was beyond him to keep the commandments. If there's anything I hate, _'tis an apple_!"

x.x.x.

MOSES MILTIADES MADISON.

Everybody knows Moses. He and others like him, "carry the bag" in too many of our churches. But n.o.body seems to know him so well as f.a.n.n.y; so we will let her relate his "experience," in her own words:

"Moses Miltiades Madison would fain have the world believe that the stumbling-block the fallen angels tripped over was no besetting sin of _his_.

"The very tails of his coat hung around him in a helpless kind of a way, as if they knew they _ought_ to be suggestive of their owner's _humility_. No sinful zephyrs presumed to dally with the straight locks, plastered with such puritanical precision over his diminutive head; his mouth had a sanctimonious drawing down at the corners, and his voice was a cross between a groan and a wail. At every prayer-meeting and conventicle, Moses was on the ground, (simultaneously with the s.e.xton,) made the most long-winded prayer; elaborated to _seventh_-LIE, the verse he was expounding, and kept one note ahead of the singing-choir in the 'doxology;' knew exactly how long it would be before the natives of the Palm Tree Islands would dress more fas.h.i.+onably than the wild beasts around them, and was entirely posted up about the last speech and confession of the very latest missionary whom the savages had made mince-meat of.

"Now Moses had an invalid wife; and his 'path of duty,' after evening meeting, generally laid in the direction of Widow Gray's house. _She_ was '_afraid_' and _he--wasn't_! So he took the prayer-book, the Bible, and the widow, under his protection, and went the longest way round. His wife, to be sure, before his return, came to the conclusion that it was a '_protracted_ meeting,' but then _Moses_ was 'a burning and a s.h.i.+ning light,' (at least so the 'church' said,) and if _Mrs._ Moses was of a different opinion, she kept it to herself. That he did occasionally pervert Scripture words and phrases, and make a very 'carnal' use of the same, when none of the congregation were present, was an indisputable fact; that the crickets, and chairs and tables, sometimes changed places in a hurry, was another; but the last was probably owing to his being a 'medium' for some '_spiritual_ rappings.'

"But if Mrs. Moses 'kept dark,' Jeremiah Jones wouldn't! He was as thorough and straight-forward in his religion as he was in building houses; he detested 'sham foundations,' as he professionally expressed it!

"One night, in an evil hour, Moses popped up, as usual, from his seat in meeting, intending to give an extra touch to his devotional exercises, as he contemplated taking a longer walk than usual with little Widow Gray. So he told 'the brethren,' (through his nose,) that 'if ever there _was_ a sinner that deserved a _very_ uncomfortable place hereafter, it was _him_--(_Moses!_)--that it was a marvel to him that he was permitted to c.u.mber the earth, that his sins were more than the hairs on his head,' (and, by the way, that was a very moderate computation!)

"So Jeremiah Jones seemed to think; for he 'riz' very demurely, and remarked that 'he had been brother Moses Madison's neighbor for many years, and was qualified to endorse that little statement of his, with regard to himself, as _substantially correct in every particular_!'

Moses fainted!"

x.x.xI.

TOM VERSUS FAN; OR, A LITTLE TALK ABOUT LITTLE THINGS.

In the sketch thus ent.i.tled, we are once more presented with a life picture, a veritable transcript of the writer's own mind. It will be seen that f.a.n.n.y is _au fait_ in the mysteries of coquetry; understands the use of long dresses, and "gaiter-boots" to perfection. Just listen:--

"'Well, Fan; any room for _me_ here?' said Tom Grey, as he seated himself in a large arm-chair in his sister's boudoir.

"'Possession is nine points of the law, Tom; it's no use answering in the negative _now_.'

"'I'm in a very distracted state of mind, sis, and I've come to make a clean breast of it to you.'

"'Mercy on us! if you are going to confess your sins, I shall beat a retreat; the catalogue is longer than my patience.'

"'Listen; you know yesterday was one of my days for walking?'

"'Boisterous wind, hey?'

"'Yes; and a man _must_ use his eyes when the G.o.ds favor him. Just before me, in Was.h.i.+ngton-street, I saw _such_ a pair of feet! Now you know pretty feet are my pa.s.sion, and 'Cinderella's' were not a circ.u.mstance to these. So I travelled on behind them, in a state of mute ecstacy, and they might have led me to the Dead Sea, and I shouldn't have stopped to ask any questions!'

"'Did you see her face?'

"'_Face?_--I didn't think of such a thing. _I_ shouldn't have cared if she hadn't any face. Of course it was pretty; nature wouldn't have perfected those continuations to that degree and left--but no matter, they were 'the _greatest_' feet for _little feet_, I ever saw. All of a sudden my G.o.ddess vanished into a shoe-store, and I stood gaping in at the window and wis.h.i.+ng I was the clerk. Presently, the young man handed her a pair of boots, and going round the counter, down he goes on one knee, and, by the blessed saints! if _he didn't take that dear little foot in his lap and try on those boots_! The rascal was twice as long about it as he need be, too, for after it was all laced on, he kept 'smoothing out the wrinkles,' as _he_ said, 'on the instep.'

St. Crispin! _wasn't_ I furious!'

"'Well--didn't you see her face, all this time?'

"'No, I tell you; she had one of those curs--I beg pardon--_curious_ veils that you women are so fond of playing _beau peep_ with! But her shawl fell off, and you'd better believe there was a figure under it even _those feet_ might be proud to carry.'

"'Well--let's have the denouement.'

"'She got into an omnibus--didn't I wish I was the mat in the bottom of it? No room for another soul, outside or in, or I should have followed her. Wish I might wake up and find myself _married to those feet_, some morning!'

"'Fan--these long skirts are very effective weapons in the hands of a pretty woman. They are provocative of curiosity. Now Bloomers--ugh! (a man is disenchanted at once;) but a nice, plump, little, cunning foot, creeping in and out, _mice-like_, from under those graceful folds--depend upon it, no woman who knows anything, will ever shorten her skirts. A coquette does as much execution with them as a Spanish dame with her fan and mantilla.'

"'Many a woman, when she thinks it worth her while, 'gets up' an imaginary quagmire, and, presto! _there's_ a pair of feet for you!

and then down goes the long skirt again, and a man's senses with it.

Jupiter! _don't_ they understand it?'

"'Tom, if you was worth the trouble, I'd box your ears! Look out the window there, I _suppose_ that's a man; a _cane and a coat-tail walking behind a moustache_! Well, here's the thermometer up to boiling point, and his coat is b.u.t.toned up tight to his jugular, _to show his chest_ to the best possible advantage. I don't believe if he was stifling, he'd let his throat out of prison. Oh, _vanity!_ thy name is _man_! I sat here at the window, laughing till I had fits, to see that fellow _prink_, the other morning, and make himself beautiful. The _att.i.tudes_, he practised! the different styles of _hair_ he 'got _up_,' and brushed _down!_ the neck-ties he tried on!

the way his _bosom-pin_ wouldn't _locate_ to his satisfaction! were all excruciating to my risibles.'

"'Well, Fan, you've no mercy, so I might as well say--I suppose, as to the comparative vanity of men and women,--it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; but to change the subject. Do you know I was thinking, to-day, that _dentistry_ might be made a very fascinating occupation if one could but choose one's customers?'

"'As how?' said Fan.

"'Why _I_ should proceed after _this_ fas.h.i.+on. When a pretty woman came to me, I should plant her down in the crucifying chair; open sundry mysterious-looking drawers, spread out a formidable array of instruments under her little nose, take up all the files, and saws, and sc.r.a.pers, one by one, and hold them up to the light to see if they were ready primed. Then I'd step round behind her chair (getting napkin, basin, and footstool fixed to my satisfaction.) The effect I calculated on being produced, the little blue-eyed victim would turn pale and look deliciously imploring into my face--then I'd use a little 'moral suasion,' as the ministers say--and quiet her nerves.

Then follows an examination of her mouth, (I should make a long job of that!) Very likely the light would not be right, and I should have to move her head a little nearer to my shoulder, then it is more than probable her long curls would get twisted round the b.u.t.tons of my coat; _there'd_ be a web for two to unweave! Then we'd commence _again_; the file in my hand makes an unlucky move against some sensitive tooth,--by that time it is to be hoped she'd be ready to faint, and need something held to her lips! Oh, Fan, my mind is in a state of vibration between _dentistry_ and the _shoe business_!'

"'What do you think of the _clerical_ profession?' said Fan, laughing. '_That_ would give you an opportunity to ask them plump, without any circ.u.mlocution or _circ.u.mbendibus_, the state of their hearts? You'd be of the Methodist persuasion, of course, and patronize 'Love Feasts.'

"'Not a bit of it. If I went into _that_ line of business, I'd be a Roman Catholic priest, and get up a confession box, and the first exercise of my authority after that would be to get _you_ into a nunnery _somewhere_. I never saw a 'f.a.n.n.y' yet that wasn't as mischievous as Satan.'

"'The _name_ is infectious, my dear; can't you get it _changed_ for me? Speaking of that, Tom, you know that 'miserable young man' that talked so freely of 'prussic acid and daggers' once on a time? May I die an old maid if he isn't the owner of a pretty little wife and two or three children--he is as fat as a porpoise, merry as a cricket, gay as a lark--don't he sing out to me 'how d'ye do Fan?' in the most _heart-whole_ fas.h.i.+on, as if he never said anything _more_ than that to me all the days of his life! Oh, Tom! _men have died_--and _worms have eaten 'em_--but--_not for love_!'