Caper Sauce Part 14

Lake George has haunted me since I saw it. I thought to abide at peace in mine easy-chair this summer, but Lake George was not visible from my windows; and how could I let the summer days s.h.i.+ne on its beauty and I not by to see? and then that glorious Hudson! for a sight of which I am _always_ longing. There was no help for it; I went through the packing purgatory, and set sail. Commend me to steamboat travel over and above all the cars that ever screeched under and above ground; but, alas!

steamboats have a drawback which cars have not. You get a comfortable seat on deck, on the shady side; in a chair _with a back_ to it. You say this is pleasant, as you fold your hands--Ugh! So does a man, or a group of them near you, who have just lighted their cigars, or worse, their pipes. Puff--puff--puff; straight into your face; right and left; fore and aft. Is this the "fresh air" for which you were travelling? You reluctantly change your place. You even take a seat in the sun, to rid yourself of the smoke. Puff--puff; another smoker sits, or stands, near you; you turn disgusted away, only to encounter another group, who evidently regard the beautiful Hudson only in the light of an enormous spittoon.

Now I protest against this lack of decency and chivalry. If no other woman dare brave these gentlemen, (?) I will, though I know well what anathemas I shall incur. I call, moreover, upon all _decent_ steamboat-captains to provide a den for these tobacco-absorbing, tobacco-emitting gentry, in some part of the boat where women are _not_.

If they must smoke, which point I neither deny nor admit, do not suffer them to expel ladies, to whom they are so profuse in----fine speeches--to the stifling air of the ladies' cabin, to avoid it. This at least seems but reasonable and fair. The only place where one is really in no danger of this nuisance at present is in church; though I am expecting every Sunday to see boots on the tops of pews, and lighted cigars behind them. Oh, I know very well that some ladies _pretend_ to "like it," because they had rather endure it than resign the attentions of a gentleman who don't know any better than to ask them "if it is disagreeable." _Of course_, it is disagreeable, for women are clean creatures; and if they tell you it is _not_, know that they tell you a good-natured but most unmitigated fib; and you should be ashamed of availing yourself of it to make yourselves such nuisances.

That lovely midnight glide up the Hudson! Lying dreamily on one's pillow; just asleep enough to know nothing disagreeable, and awake enough to see with half-closed eyes through your little window the white sails, and green sh.o.r.es, and listen to the plas.h.i.+ng water.

Daylight and Albany, with its noisy pier, seem an impertinence.

"Breakfast?" ah, yes--we are human, and love coffee; but the melancholy figures and faces, as we emerge from our state-room! Rosy mouths agape; bright eyes half-veiled with heavy lids; cloaks and mantles tossed on with more haste than taste; hair tumbled, bonnets awry. Pull down your veils, ladies, and prepare yourselves for a general dislocation of every bone in your body, as you thunder up to the hotel in _that_ omnibus, which is bound back again in exactly three seconds, for another hapless cargo.

Your "unprotected female" is to be met everywhere. Is my countenance so benevolent that she should have singled me out, as I waited at the hotel for my breakfast? There she was--with spectacles on nose, carpet-bag in hand; alert--nervous--distracted.

"Was I travelling North or South?"

Was it for want of coffee, or geography, that I curtly replied: "I haven't the least idea, Ma'am."

"Was I alone, dear?"

"Husband, Ma'am."

"Where's the ---- House, dear?"

"_This_ is it, Ma'am."

"Lord bless me--I thought it was the Depot!"

There may be individuals existing who have not ridden in _that_ stage-coach from "Moreau Station" to Lake George. If so, let him or her, particularly _her_, bear in mind, in selecting her att.i.tude on sitting down, that it is final and irrevocable, spite of cramps, for thirteen good miles of sunny, sandy, up-and-down-hill, b.u.mping, thumping travel.

However, there's fun even in that. Jolts bring out jokes. After punching daylight through the ribs of one's neighbor, one don't wait for an "introduction." Your Cologne bottle becomes common property, also your fan. If there is an unlucky wight on top, whose overhanging boots betoken a due respect for the eighth commandment, of course he can have the refusal of your sun umbrella to keep his brains from frying, particularly as you don't know what to do with it inside. Yes--on the whole, it is fun; but it isn't fun to arrive at a hotel faint, dusty, hungry, and hear, "We are running over, but we can _feed_ you here, if you'll _lodge_ in the village." May do for men, groan out the green veils; try at another house. Ah, now it is _our_ turn; installed by some hocus-pocus in two rooms commanding a magnificent view of the lake, we can afford to pity hungry wretches who can't get in. Now we breathe! Our feet and arms--yes, they are all right, for we just tried them. Now we toss off our bonnet, and gaze at those huge mountains and their dark shadows on the lake; now we see the little row-boats glide along, to the musical, sparkling dip of the oar; now we hear the merry laughs of the rowers, or perhaps a s.n.a.t.c.h of a song in a woman's voice. Now the clear, fresh breeze sweeps over the hills, and ruffles the lake, bringing us spicy odors. Oh, but this is delicious. Dress? What, _here_? No, indeed; enough of that in New York. Who wants to see dresses may look in our trunks. That hill is to be climbed, that sh.o.r.e to be reached, that boat to be sailed in, and how is that to be done if one "dresses"? We are for a tramp, a sail, a drive--anything but dressing.

Lake George by moonlight, at midnight! oh, you should see it, with its s.h.i.+ning, quivering path of light, as if for angel footsteps. I know not whether another world is fairer than this; but I _do_ know that _there_ are no sighs, no weary outstretching of the hands for help, no smothered cry of despair.

SELF-HELP.--We pity those who do not and never have "labored." _Ennui_ and satiety sooner or later are sure to be their portion. Like the child who is in possession of every new toy, and who has snapped and broken them all, they stand looking about for something--_anything_ new and amusing; and like this child, they often stoop to the mud and the gutter for it. It is an understood principle of human nature, that people never value that which is easily obtained. Bread which has been purchased with unearned money has never the flavor and sweetness of that which is won by the sweat of one's own brow.

_COOKERY AND TAILORING._

When male writers have nothing else to say they fall "afoul" of all women for not being adepts in cookery. Now, one might just as well insist that every man should know how to make his own trousers, as that every woman should be a cook.

Suppose reverses should come, and the man who don't know how should not be able to employ a tailor, where would he be then, not understanding how to make his own trousers? And suppose reverses should _not_ come, how much wiser and better for him to know practically all about tailoring, so that he might _with knowledge_ be able to direct his tailor? At present he thoughtlessly steps in and recklessly orders them.

How does he know whether the amount of cloth used is necessary, or the contrary? How does he know that he isn't swindled fearfully on b.u.t.tons, lappets, and facings, and even the padding inserted to make his rickety figure bewitching? I grieve when I think of this, and then of his asking his wife afterward, "what she did with the twenty-five cents he gave her yesterday to go shopping with." He ought to be master of tailoring in all its branches, before he links his destiny with a woman, or else he ought to wear a cloak, which, morally speaking, _is_ his normal condition.

He may reply that he don't like tailoring; that he has no gift for tailoring; that studying it ever so long he should only make a bad tailor, to spoil the making of a good lawyer or doctor. That's nothing to the purpose. I insist that he shall learn _tailoring_; not only that, but I insist that he shall _like_ it too. His lawyering and doctoring can come in afterward wheresoever the G.o.ds will, in the c.h.i.n.ks of his time, but breeches and coats he shall know how to make, or every editor in the land shall be down on him whenever they are hard up for an editorial, if, without this important branch of knowledge, he presumes to address a political meeting. For not understanding breeches, how the mischief can he understand politics, or be prepared to speak about them?

He may tell me that he don't intend to "link his destiny with woman,"

but instead, to be a gay bachelor, and have a latch-key, and one towel a week at some boarding-house, and whistle "Hail Columbia" at midnight, at his own sweet will, with variations, without the fear of waking some wretched baby. _That's_ nothing to do with it. I insist that even _then_, he, being obliged to wear breeches, should know how many yards of different width cloth it takes to make them. I insist that, without this knowledge, he is not even prepared to be a bachelor. n.o.body can tell, in this world, when misfortune may overtake one. Cigars may become so dear, and his exchequer so low in consequence, that he may be obliged to alter his little plan, and link his destiny to some woman who will earn them for him. And suppose the twins should afterward interfere with her earnings, then think how glorious it would be to turn his knowledge of tailoring to account on this conjugal rainy day, and not only make his own breeches, but those of the twins, who would undoubtedly be boys, because men like boys, and therefore ought to have them.

Now, having freed my mind on this point, I proceed to say that the brightest and most gifted women I have known have perfectly understood cookery, and have written some of their best things over the cooking-stove, while they kept _two_ "pots boiling." Furthermore, that the more brains a woman has, the less she will "look down upon," or "despise," a knowledge so important as that of cookery. But because she knows how, and because she does it, it need not of necessity follow that she "hankers after it." And _when_ she does it, she should have the credit of doing it; and if her husband be a literary man, he should know and acknowledge--which is the thing he don't always do--that though she resolutely performs her duty without s.h.i.+rking, while he quietly scribbles, a sigh occasionally goes up chimney with the smoke, at the thoughts which fly up with it, that she may never catch again, either for fame or money. I say, when gobbling down the food she prepares, or oversees the preparing, in these days of incompetent servants, he should sometimes recognize this.

Then I would call attention to the fact that married men should everywhere, and in all cla.s.ses, remember, that it is very discouraging for any wife and housekeeper, when, for the same efficient labor which she expends under her own roof, she could earn for herself at least a competence, to be obliged to go as a _beggar_ to her husband for the money which is justly her _due_. Perhaps, if husbands were more just and generous with regard to this matter, women might take their pleasure in "cookery," which every man seems to think is her only "through ticket"

to Paradise, and to their affections, _via_ their stomachs.

TAKE A VACATION.--It need not of necessity be an expensive one. Go away, if only for a week, and shake off the drudgery of routine. Some people are of the opinion that upon their return they will find work all the more difficult. It is not so. The vacation judiciously spent, and according to one's means, will give increased strength for the performance of the duties awaiting us. Let those who cannot do this, take now and then a car-ride into the country, for a day of fresh air. A sight of the green gra.s.s and clover-blossoms will do them good.

Continuous, unremitting labor is not good either for man or beast.

_UP THE HUDSON._

I suppose n.o.body is to blame, but I feel indignant every time I take a steamboat sail up the Hudson, that I was not born a New Yorker. I am not particularly fond of sleeping on a shelf, or eating bread and b.u.t.ter in that submarine _Tophet_, called the "Dining Cabin;" were it not for these little drawbacks, I think I should engage board for a month on one of our Hudson river steamboats (one that _doesn't_ patronize "Calliopes").

As to a "residence on the banks of the Hudson," do you think I would so sacrilegiously and audaciously familiarize myself with its glorious beauty? I decline on the principle that the lover, who had pleasurably wooed for years, refused to marry, "because he should have nowhere to spend his evenings;" where, oh, where, _I_ ask, should I spend my _summers_? Yes, a month's board on a Hudson river steamboat! _a floating boarding-house!_ why not? I claim the idea as original. First stipulation--meals and mattresses _on deck_, in fair weather.

What a curious study are travellers! How the human nature comes out!

There are your men and women, bound to get their money's worth, to the last dime, and who imagine that bullying and bl.u.s.ter is the way, not only to do this, but to deceive people into the belief that they are accustomed to being waited upon at home. Of such are the men who wander ceaselessly upstairs and downstairs and in my ladies' cabin, smoking and yawning, poking their walking-sticks into every bundle and basket from sheer ennui,--and ever and anon returning on deck, suspiciously wiping their mouths. Of such are they who light a pipe or cigar in the immediate proximity of ladies, who have just secured a comfortable seat on deck, that they may revel in the much-longed-for fresh sea-breeze; dogged, obstinate, "deil take the hindmost," selfish, ruffianly cubs, who would stand up on their hind legs in a twinkling at the insinuation that they were not "gentlemen."

Yes, there are all sorts on board a steamboat; there is your country-woman in her best toggery; fancy bonnet, bra.s.s ear-rings, and the inevitable "locket;" who, when the gong sounds, takes out a huge basket to dine off mola.s.ses-cake, drop-cake, doughnuts, and cheese; who coolly nudges some man in the ribs "to lend her the loan" of his jack-knife, wherewith she dexterously cuts up and harpoons into a mouth more useful than ornamental, little square blocks of "soggy"

gingerbread, with a trusting confidence in the previous habits of that strange jack-knife, that is delicious to witness! Then there are quicksilver little children, frightening mothers into fits, by peering into dangerous places, and leaning over the deck into the water; shaking their little flossy lap-dog-curls, and singing as they go, asking you with innocent straightforwardness, as they decline your offered cracker, "why you didn't buy candy instead." Then there are great, puffy, red-faced Britons, with strong white teeth, most astonis.h.i.+ng girth of limb, and power of sleep in uncomfortable places; broad in the shoulders and sluggish in the brain; "not thinking much of America," but somehow or other keeping on coming here! Then there is your stereotyped steerage-pa.s.senger, rubbing one eye with the corner of her ap.r.o.n, who has "niver a penny to get to her daughter," and she _might_ add niver a daughter, and come nearer the truth.

Then there is the romantic young-lady traveller, got up coquettishly, and yet faultlessly, for the occasion in that ravis.h.i.+ng little hat and feather, becoming only to young beauty, or at least to fresh youth, whose wealth of hair threatens instant escape from the silken net at the back of her head, and of whose fringed eyes all bachelors should beware.

Let her have her little triumphs, ye that have had _your_ day, and let no censorious old maid, or strait-laced matron, look daggers at her innocent pleasure in being beautiful. Then there is a gentleman and lady, cultivated and refined, if faces may be trusted, with a sweet boy, whom you would never know to be blind, his face is so sunny, were it not that they guide his steps so carefully; and why shouldn't his face be sunny, when his infirmity calls forth such riches of love and tenderness? How gently his mother smooths his hair, and places his little cap upon it, and _how one loves his father_ for holding him so long there upon his knee, and whispering to him all about the beautiful places we are pa.s.sing, instead of leaving him to his mother, and going selfishly off to smoke uncounted cigars. Nor is our steamboat without its wag, who has his own way of pa.s.sing the time. Having possessed himself of a large plate of ice-cream as bait for a group of youngsters, who are standing expectant in a row before him, with imperturbable gravity he maliciously feeds them with such _huge_ spoonfuls that little feet dance up and down, and little hands are clapped to chubby cheeks, to ease the ache, which they are not quite sure is pain or pleasure, but which, anyhow, they have no idea of foregoing.

And now night comes on, and travellers one by one--or two by two, which is far better--disappear in those purgatorial state-rooms, and peep like prisoners through the grated windows, and try to sleep to the monotonous plash-plash of the waves, while male nocturnal pedestrians walk _very_ slowly past the hurricane-deck state-room windows (innocent of curtain or blind), while denunciatory epithets are being muttered at them by their fair occupants.

Morning comes at last, and--Albany. I would respectfully inquire of its "oldest inhabitant," if it _always_ rains torrents at Albany, at four o'clock in the morning, on the arrival of the boats? Also, if _all_ their roads are as "hard to travel" as that through which steamboat pa.s.sengers are furiously b.u.mped and thumped, by drivers who seem to be on contract to Macadamize the bones of their pa.s.sengers as well as the roads. It takes one of mine host of the ----'s _very_ good breakfasts to christianize one after it.

VICTIMIZED BABIES.--Nothing is more distressing to contemplate than a young baby in the hands of an ignorant mother. The way she will roast it in warm weather with layers of clothes, and strip it in cold weather, if fas.h.i.+on bids, and wash it when it is sleepy and tired, and put out its eyes with sun or gas, and feed it wrongly, or neglect to feed it at the proper time, and in every way thwart Nature and outrage common-sense, is so harrowing a sight to the stranger who dare not intermeddle, that a speedy retreat is the only course left, till he is perhaps summoned to the poor little thing's funeral, not mine.

_"WHY DON'T I LECTURE?"_

The true reason is, that I've nothing to say, and no ambition to say it.

But as n.o.body ever gives the true reason for anything, why should I?

Well, then, it is owing to several other becauses. In the first place, never being able to learn the multiplication table, how can I study Time tables? How could I find out, without getting the headache, how long it would take me to travel from Pumpkinville to Turnipville? How could I tell whether it would rain or s.h.i.+ne that day? and not knowing this, how could I tell what to wear? As to what a woman lectures about, that is a minor consideration; but as to _what she wears_, ask the reporters if that does not const.i.tute the staple of their newspaper accounts of her public appearance. Then I am afraid of "committees." Committees are composed of men. If I arrived late, and the expectant audience were just on the point of exploding, I couldn't ask the committee how my "back hair" looked. You see at once the difficulty of the thing, also its importance, because they would be the fellows that would have to look at my back hair from a _plat_-form view, you see. Well, then, again, I couldn't lecture because I can't breathe without fresh air; and that is a luxury that is always denied to lecturers. They'll applaud him, and they'll ask him "what he'll drink," and they'll take him to execution in a carriage, and take his corpse back in a carriage, but they won't let him breathe, at least till they've done with him, and I shouldn't long survive such politeness. Then the stereotyped pitcher of water would close my lips instead of helping to open them. I hate a pitcher of water. I got a boxed ear for saying that once; but I've got two ears, that's a comfort, so I'll say it again. Then, I couldn't lecture because I should feel cold s.h.i.+vers down my back, when that awful chairman rose and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the speaker for this evening, f.a.n.n.y FERN." I hate that. I should want to hop up and speak when I got ready--say--while the lovers in the audience were whispering to each other, and the old ladies settling where to put their "umberils," and the old gentlemen hunting their pockets for their "spettacles" which they had left at home, and the old maids trying to find a seat where "a horrid man" wasn't too near. I'd like to pounce on them, like a cat, just then, and give my first scratch and draw blood; and then they'd let me go on my own way; because, you see, I am one of those persons who can't do anything "to order." I often see in the papers advertis.e.m.e.nts of "s.h.i.+rts made--to order," but I never yet saw an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a corresponding female garment made that way. Did you?

Well, that's a hint that females shouldn't be hampered by stupid rules and precedents. But this is a digression.