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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4048-h.zip b/4048-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c116b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/4048-h.zip diff --git a/4048-h/4048-h.htm b/4048-h/4048-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77353b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/4048-h/4048-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2279 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Talkative Wig, by Eliza Lee Follen +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.salutation {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Talkative Wig, by Eliza Lee Follen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Talkative Wig + +Author: Eliza Lee Follen + +Posting Date: June 11, 2009 [EBook #4048] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: October 20, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALKATIVE WIG *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE TALKATIVE WIG +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +MRS. FOLLEN +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +With Illustrations by Billings and others +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +THE OLD GARRET. +</H2> + +<P> +"Pray, dear Mother," said the boys, "tell us what else you heard in +the old garret." +</P> + +<P> +"You know," said she, "it was on a rainy Sunday when my mother sent +me up there with my book, Pilgrim's Progress. This book always +delighted me, and set my fancy to work in some way or other. +</P> + +<P> +After reading a while, I began to look at the queer old things in +the garret. Pussy began to purr louder and louder, and at last I +fell again into the same dreamy sleep that I was in at first. +</P> + +<P> +Presently I heard the same confused sound which I heard before when +the old tenants of the garret began to speak. There seemed also to +be a slight motion among them, and a sort of mysterious appearance +came over the whole apartment, as if they were all living, though +very shadowy beings. Presently I heard the creak of the curling +tongs, and he uttered these words:— +</P> + +<P> +"I think we have all been wronged by our friend the wig; he approved +of our all relating our own histories, and promised that, after we +had done so, he would give us his, frankly and truly, as we have +done; instead of that he, as well as the rest of us, fell asleep +when our friend spinning wheel related her story; and, when we all +waked up, he did not fulfil his promise. I move that he be requested +now to give us a faithful account of his whole life, till he was +consigned with us to this dark, gloomy old place. I probably have +been more intimately acquainted with him than any one present; for +once or twice I have assisted in smoothing, or rather frizzing, his +ruffled hairs, and making him fit for company; and, with your leave, +my friends, I urge him in your name to relate his history." A sort +of hum of approbation sounded through the long, dark old garret, and +then the wig spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Friend Frizzle is right: I did agree to relate my adventures, but I +said I would wait till all had told their stories; now, here are two +of this brilliant company that have not said one word of themselves, +that comical coat and that old cloak; after they have related their +history I will relate mine. The wig hitched a little on his block, +and was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"I am ready," said the coat, "to tell all I know of myself, and I +shall not keep you long, I trust. My friend the baize gown and I had +the same origin on the back of a sheep, only I was of a nicer +texture, and had, from my earliest days, a more refined character; +and, of course, was used for higher purposes. Major Sword there may +know perhaps that I had as much to do with making the major of +Cadets as he had, only I did not make people run when they looked at +me, as he says he did. +</P> + +<P> +I was originally of the most delicate white, and I was made into one +of the very first coats that ever appeared on the parade as one of +the Governor's guards. I think I did more to make the major than my +Lord Sword did. Think of a major without a coat! He would not be a +major, for a moment. He would be hooted at. Now, even were he +without a sword, and had me, such as I once was, on his back, he +would still be known as a major of the Cadets." +</P> + +<P> +"Self-glorification! Come to your story," cried the musket, with a +bounce. +</P> + +<P> +"I will," said the coat. "I was, as I have told you, the major's +military coat, admired by all who looked at me; and I appeared often +on parade days till he gave up his office, and left this country, +when I was left hanging up in his dressing room, and all my glory +was gone. +</P> + +<P> +As the major's boys grew bigger, they would often beg their mother +to allow them to put me on. The rogues were so short then that I +trailed on the ground. I was even so far abused as to be worn by +girls. This tried my feelings sorely, but I was forced to submit. +Once I was so far disgraced as to be worn by one of the girls while +she danced with her brother who was dressed like a monkey, with a +tail over a yard long; and this was not all, she pulled the monkey's +tail too hard, it came off, and then the monkey boy seized the tail +and beat me with it, meaning to beat his sister, but I got the worst +of it. So I lived to be made fun of, and lived for nothing else. +</P> + +<P> +At last, the major's wife, our dear mistress, took me one day into +her gentle hands, and after examining me carefully and making up her +mind to the act, deliberately took her scissors, ripped me up into +pieces, and sent me to the dyer's, to be colored brown. This was too +horrid—I was soused into the vilest mixture you can imagine, and +suffered every thing abominable, such as being stretched within an +inch of my life, and then almost burned to death. At last, I came +out with the color you now see me, not a handsome brown, but a real +sickish rhubarb color. My dear mistress laughed when she looked at +me. "This is a dose," said she, "but it will do for an every day +coat for Jonathan, and I can make it myself, with Keziah Vose's aid; +so I will not grieve about it. So Keziah was sent for and set to +work. +</P> + +<P> +Now Jonathan was a white-haired, chubby boy, and this was his first +coat. Keziah went by her eye altogether. She took no measures except +for the sleeves, and these she said she would make large and long, +to allow for Jonathan's growing. She made me so broad behind that +one brass button could not see the other, although they were, as you +see, almost as large as a small plate; the skirts came down so as to +hide the calves of his legs, and were so full as nearly to meet +before. My sleeves had a regular slouch. There was no hollow in the +back, and I looked as if I was made for one of the boys' snow men, +not for a human being. +</P> + +<P> +When I was finished and put on for the first time, all the children +and their mother were present, as it happened. My droll looks and +rhubarb color, the comical expression of Jonathan's face,—for he +was a great rogue,—and his sun-bleached hair, half hidden by my +high, stiff collar, set them all into a gale of laughter. He took +hold of my full skirts, one on each side, and began to dance; and +even his mother and Keziah laughed too. Nothing was to be done. A +few times, the mother of Jonathan tried to induce him to wear me at +home, for she could not afford, she said, to lose all I had cost +her; but it was all in vain—giggle, giggle, went all the children +when they saw me, and I had to be hung up, as you see me now. +Whenever they wanted a comical dress in any of their plays, I was +brought out, and that little girl asleep there, and her brothers +still amuse themselves with my comical looks. Alas! I am of no other +use in this world. +</P> + +<P> +The young people used to amuse themselves by acting little plays, or +some other nonsense; and when they wanted to make a very ridiculous +figure, I noticed they came for me. I always observed that whoever +had me on talked through his nose, with an ugly drawl, and used +vulgar words and expressions, such as "Now you don't! Do tell! +Sartin true!" +</P> + +<P> +Once they put me on a dancing bear. This was insulting. I don't like +to think of it. I try to forget it. +</P> + +<P> +In short, every one laughs when I am present, for some reason or +other; and I suppose I have been kept on account of the merriment I +have afforded the family. After all, my friends, I am not sure that +he who adds to the innocent gayety of people is not as valuable a +person as one who has more dignity, and who never made any one laugh +in his life. +</P> + +<P> +I have done, my friends—the old cloak is a more serious, dignified +person than I, and will now, I trust, give us her history." +</P> + +<P> +The old cloak began to speak in a different tone from that of the +coat. I cannot say the tone was gloomy, though it was very serious. +It was a kindly, affectionate tone, that made you not unhappy, but +thoughtful. "I agree," said she, "with my neighbor who has just +spoken, that no one deserves better of society than he who promotes +its innocent merriment. No bad person can know what true gayety of +heart is. Goodness and cheerfulness are like substance and shadow; +where the one is, the other will always follow. +</P> + +<P> +I was made of German wool; and, in my country, the people all laugh +and sing. They keep still a saying of old Martin Luther, which runs, +if I remember rightly,— +</P> + +<P> +"Wo man singt, leg' ich mich freilich nieder. Bose Menschen haben +keine Lieder." +</P> + +<P> +"Keep to plain English, you Hushan!" shouted the musket with a kick. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry to hurt your feelings, my old soldier," said the good +natured cloak. "I think, however, it is rather hard of you to keep +the name of Hessian as a term of reproach forever, just because a +few poor miserable fellows once came over here to fight you. Was it +not enough to have treated them as you say you did in the Jerseys? +For the benefit of you and those less prejudiced, I will translate +the couplet:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Where I singing hear,<BR> + I lay me, free from fear.<BR> + Men intent on wrong<BR> + Never have a song."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I was a singer myself once during the short time when I was +connected with one of dame spinning wheel's relatives. I am not even +a laugher now. Still I am contented and cheerful, and I remember +past trials without any bitterness. I went through all processes of +carding, spinning, weaving, dyeing, stretching, dressing, &c., and +was at last placed in a shop for sale. A beautiful young girl +purchased me for her bridal pelisse. Never did a happier heart beat +than did hers on the Sunday after she was married, when she wore me +to the church, holding by her husband's arm. I could not but partake +of the pleasure which she received from the gentle pressure of his +arm when she put hers within his, saying, "I am glad, dear, you like +my pelisse so much." +</P> + +<P> +O, how happy we all were! How proud my mistress was of me! How proud +I was of her! I hate to pass hastily over these happy days, but I +suppose the history of them would not be very interesting to any of +my hearers; for one day was very much like another. Never did any +garment cover a more innocent, joyful heart than that of my +mistress. +</P> + +<P> +I lasted well for some years, but my sleeves, at last, became +threadbare; soon after, there were actual holes in them, and holes +also in my waist; I was, I must confess, a shabby-looking pelisse. +</P> + +<P> +My dear mistress took me into her hands one day, and, after +examining me all over, said, with a sigh, "I cannot wear it any +longer; I must give it up." At last, her expression brightened and +she added, "I can give it to cousin Jane; I am very tall, and she is +very short. The skirt is good, and she can make a cloak of it; and +so my precious pelisse will still be where I can see it." +</P> + +<P> +Forthwith I was sent to cousin Jane, with a very pretty note +explaining to her the reasons why her cousin took the liberty of +offering her the old pelisse. Cousin Jane wanted a cloak, and could +not afford to buy one; so I was carefully ripped up and turned, and +made into a very respectable garment. +</P> + +<P> +Cousin Jane was a dressmaker; and, in her service, I learned +something of what dressmakers have to endure. She had not been long +engaged in her trade; and, at first, she would put me on in the +morning with a brisk, vigorous manner, but in the evening, when she +returned home, how differently she took me up! how differently she +threw me over her weary shoulders! +</P> + +<P> +Soon she ceased to put me on in the morning in the same strong, +elastic manner, but took me up languidly, and as if she dreaded the +day, and, when she went into the air, wrapped me very closely about +her, just as if I was her only comfort, and pressed me to her heart, +as if in hopes it would ache less. +</P> + +<P> +Poor dear cousin Jane, my heart aches to think of her. Day after +day, from morning till night, and often till the next day began, she +toiled and toiled, stooping over her work, sewing, sewing, hour +after hour, and day after day, stooping all the time, till her eyes +lost their brightness, her step all its elasticity, till her +shoulders grew round, and her health failed. +</P> + +<P> +O, had those for whom she labored, for her small day's wages, but +observed how the lamp of life was gradually going out, they would +not have allowed her so to work without any respite; they would have +made her take better care of her own health; they would have sent +her home early; they would not have allowed her to work thirteen or +fourteen hours a day in their service. +</P> + +<P> +There was one family in which she worked where the master and +mistress insisted that at one o'clock Jane should lay aside her +work, and walk till two, when they dined. Then they insisted upon +her dining at their own table, and tried to make her meal a social +and pleasant one. +</P> + +<P> +O, these were white days for poor Jane. Could I not tell when she +was going to work in this family by the way she threw me over her +shoulders? Did I not feel her gentle heart beating with unwonted +warmth as she came home from this family before eight o'clock, +accompanied by the truly good man of the house or some trusty +person? When she hung me up in her small bed room, did I not notice +her grateful, happy smile? She felt that she was recognized by these +good people as a sister and friend, and that the words which we hear +at church and read in the Bible, "All men are brethren," were not +mere words with them. +</P> + +<P> +These evenings she would make her small fire, and sometimes indulge +herself in reading a little while; she would go to bed early, and +did not look so pale in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +Had all the customers of cousin Jane been as kind and considerate as +these good people were, she might have lived; and I should, perhaps, +have continued in her possession; but life was too hard for her,—she +struggled with it for many years, and then her sweet spirit turned +wearily away from it; she grew weaker and weaker, the color grew +brighter and brighter on her cheek, and the light in her eye; she +looked like a spirit; and, ere long, she was one. +</P> + +<P> +My first owner came, as soon as she heard how ill Jane was, and took +her home to this house in the country. Here our good mistress nursed +her poor cousin, and made the last days as happy as she could; but +Jane was weary of this life, and longed for a better one. She passed +away as gently and sweetly as a summer evening cloud or a dying +flower. +</P> + +<P> +Our mistress said to her husband, "All Jane's clothes, except this +dear cloak, I have given to the poor. This I must keep myself; for +it was one of my wedding garments, and dear Jane has made it all the +dearer to me. I shall keep it to lend to friends who are caught here +in the rain; it shall be called the friend's cloak, and shall always +be kept in the closet in the hall, close at hand." +</P> + +<P> +Now, I suppose every one knows of how much use such a cloak is in a +family. Never was a cloak more employed than I, and for all sorts of +things. I was used to play dumb orator. I was at every one's +service. I don't know how they ever did without me. +</P> + +<P> +Don't be astonished that I did not wear out; my lining was strong, +and I tell you an old cloak has a charmed life; you cannot wear it +out; like charity, it suffereth long and is kind. +</P> + +<P> +As my dear mistress's children grew up, I was treated very much as +you all have been; that is to say, with no respect at all. What a +different life was mine from that which I led with dear, gentle +cousin Jane. Peace be with her sweet spirit! +</P> + +<P> +One prank which the boys played some years after Jane's death, I +must relate, and then I have done. The eldest, whose name was +Willie, took me, the evening before thanksgiving day, and, having +dressed himself up in some of the cook's dirty old clothes, and hung +a basket on his arm, put me over his shoulders, and I went begging +of all the neighbors for something to keep thanksgiving with. He +disguised his voice by putting cotton wool in his mouth, and I +wonder myself how I came to know him. Two or three boys of his +acquaintance went with him, all dressed as beggars; and a grand +frolic they had. +</P> + +<P> +They went to one house where a man lived that made great pretensions +to religion and goodness, but who the boys strongly suspected was +not very compassionate to the poor. +</P> + +<P> +"Please," said Willie, "give us a little flour and raisins for our +mother to make a thanksgiving pudding with to-morrow." His answer +was a slam of the door in his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us go to Granny Horton's," said one of the boys; "she has not +gone to bed yet." +</P> + +<P> +"O," said Willie, "you know she has nothing but what mother sends +her, or some of the neighbors. It would be a shame. I carried her a +pair of chickens this morning, and some flour and raisins; and it is +a shame to beg of her, she is so kind. But won't it be funny if she +gives us something, when Squire Marsh would not; at any rate, she'll +not slam the door in our faces. Come, let's go quickly, before she +puts out her little light and goes to bed. I bet she'll give us one +of her chickens. But let us take whatever she gives us, just for the +fun, and for fear we should be found out." +</P> + +<P> +Willie was to be the spokesman. He felt rather queerly at first; but +the fun of the thing was too tempting, so he agreed to speak. He was +dressed as a girl, and wrapped me closely about him, as if he was +very cold. He had on an old straw bonnet, and his face was painted, +so that she could not recognize him, he knew. +</P> + +<P> +They knocked at Granny Horton's door, and she, in a kind, gentle +voice, replied, "Come in!" Willie, pretending to be a girl, told how +she and her brother and sister had come from the farther part of the +town, where they lived in the woods with a mother who was very old, +and had hardly any thing to eat; and how they wanted something good +to carry to her for thanksgiving day—a little flour, or a chicken, +or any thing; that it was too hard for his dear mother to have +nothing but beans on that day; that beans were what they lived on +commonly. +</P> + +<P> +He looked so mournful, and spoke in such a mournful tone that the +dear old woman, after thinking one moment, said to him, "I have two +chickens, a quart of flour, and two pounds of raisins, sent to me by +a good lady this morning, and brought to me by a real good little +boy called Willie. I can't ask their leave, but I guess they would +not scold me for giving your mother half of what he brought me; so +you shall have it, dear. 'It's more blessed to give than to +receive.' 'The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be His +name.'" +</P> + +<P> +While she was saying over these blessed words, she was busy dividing +the flour and the raisins, and putting them and the chicken into the +basket which Willie gave her. +</P> + +<P> +They all thanked the old woman very kindly, and went off with her +flour and chicken. +</P> + +<P> +"What shall we do with it all?" said they, as soon as they were out +of the house. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us," said Willie, "beg all we can every where, and get our +basket full, and carry it back to her, and, when she is asleep, get +into her house again, and put it on her hearth. I know how to open +the window on the outside when she thinks it fast." +</P> + +<P> +This was a good joke for the boys; so they went from house to house, +and, except at the squire's and one other place, got something from +every one, till, at last, their basket was full. Then they went +home, and got a peck of apples from their mother. +</P> + +<P> +Willie then led the way to Granny Horton's again. They looked in at +the window, and, by the light of the few embers still burning, saw +the good woman asleep in her great, old-fashioned chair, with her +spectacles on, and by her side a little stand on which lay her Bible +open at the place where she had been reading. +</P> + +<P> +"I can get in," said Willie, "and put the basket down by her side +before she wakes." +</P> + +<P> +Accordingly, he went to a little window in the back part of the +house, climbed in, came softly into the room where she was, and set +the baskets, all running over with good things, down on the hearth. +Willie had hardly got back to the window, when the good woman waked +up; and there, directly before her eyes, stood the baskets. She took +them up, and looked at them for some minutes before she took any +thing out. At last, she began to examine their contents. When she +came to her chicken and flour and raisins, in the very papers in +which she had wrapped them; she looked up and clasped her hands with +such astonishment, with such a look of wonder and gratitude, that +the boys, in their glee, laughed outright, and so loud that she +heard them. +</P> + +<P> +She ran to the window, but they were gone; and she never knew how it +was that her chicken and flour brought her back seven fold. +</P> + +<P> +When next the cook went to see her, with me on,—I was every body's +cloak,—the old lady told her the whole story of finding the chicken +and flour, and so many other good things with them. The secret was +kept; and it was Granny Horton's firm faith that it was the wings of +angels she heard when she went to the window. Indeed she thought she +had seen the wings, for as Willie turned to run, he forgot to hold +me tight, and the wind blew me up so as to hide him entirely, and +she took me for great dark wings. +</P> + +<P> +I fear you may be weary of my story. I have much more that I could +relate, but I have already been too long. +</P> + +<P> +I am, as you see, ragged and worn, but the dear family have an +affection for me still, as well as for all the rest of us; and so I +am allowed to remain here in this most respectable company. I trust +the wig will now give us his history for which we have waited so +long." +</P> + +<P> +"There is time enough before eight o'clock for the story of the +wig," said Frank, "if you can remember it, Mother. He ought to tell +his story now, as he promised." +</P> + +<P> +"As the wig began to speak," said their mother, "he gave a slight +hitch on one side, just as if some one pushed him up a little, and +then, after a short pause, began thus: "You will be astonished, +perhaps, to know that it is more than a hundred years since I first +saw the light. None of you have lived so long, or seen as much as I +have. I cannot tell all I have seen or known. It would take too +long, and weary you too much. I can only give a slight sketch of my +long life. +</P> + +<P> +In the year seventeen hundred and fifty, the baby head upon which I +grew came into this strange world in which we live. O, how happy was +the mother who saw me for the first time! How full was her joy when +she stroked the small head of her little girl, and exclaimed, "How +beautiful and soft her hair is! softer than velvet or satin." Even +then, every one said, "What a beautiful head of hair! What a lovely +baby!" +</P> + +<P> +The little girl whose head I adorned was the daughter of a poor +vicar who lived with his wife in an obscure country town in England. +</P> + +<P> +Alice was their fifth child, but their only daughter. She was very +beautiful, and, I may say it surely without vanity now, I was her +greatest ornament. I was of a beautiful auburn color, and fell in +thick clusters all over her happy, gentle head, and shaded her +laughter-loving face. After a day of hard work, how fond her mother +was of taking her little pet in her lap, and twisting up every curl +in nice order under her white linen night-cap, before putting her to +bed! Her father, too, would wind my ringlets around his great +fingers, made hard and rough with toil in the garden, and would kiss +every one of them, and pray God to bless the young head on which +they grew. +</P> + +<P> +As the dear head grew larger, I grew larger and thicker. Every one +who saw me noticed me. One would say, "It looks like a pot of +hyacinths"; another, "It has caught the sunshine and kept it." +</P> + +<P> +What a pleasant life I led! When Alice grew a large girl, she became +something of a romp, and one of her favorite amusements was to go to +the top of a hill near her father's house, when there was a high +wind, and let it blow through her curls, and sing and shout and +dance from the fulness of her joy. When she came home, she would say +"Mother, the wind has been combing my hair." +</P> + +<P> +O the horrid combing that I had to endure every morning! One must be +a head of curly hair to know how terrible is a comb. +</P> + +<P> +If you will not think me too long, I must talk a little more about +the dear Alice, and tell you what I witnessed till I was separated +from her." +</P> + +<P> +"Go ahead," said the old musket. +</P> + +<P> +"I must tell you how her sweetness and goodness once saved the house +from robbery. It was the custom of her father and mother, on Sunday, +to lock up the house, while they went to church. A pot of pork and +beans, and a pudding of Indian meal was put in the oven to bake for +their dinner. +</P> + +<P> +One Sunday, as Alice had a heavy cold, they left her at home. She +was then fourteen years old, and felt herself quite equal to taking +charge of the house. +</P> + +<P> +It was generally known that the curate's house was locked up on +Sunday; and a poor, foolish, as well as wicked fellow, determined to +take that opportunity to help himself to the good curate's silver, +or any other valuable, he could find in the house. It happened that +the man took the Sunday when Alice was left at home for his wicked +purpose. +</P> + +<P> +When he came to the door which he intended to break open, he was +admitted by Alice, who saw him coming. She asked him to come in and +sit down, then inquired if he had travelled far, and set before him +some bread and butter and cold water. +</P> + +<P> +"My father is a minister," she said, "and always asks travellers to +stay. We have some dinner in the oven, and we shall all of us like +to have you stay and dine. You look pale and tired; you had better +stay." +</P> + +<P> +These words Alice said with such a sweet, confiding earnestness, +that the wicked purpose died away from the heart of the intended +thief. He felt as if he was in the presence of an angel. He looked +at her in wonder. All the evil in him seemed to depart. +</P> + +<P> +"You are very good," he said. "Do you take care of the house all +alone by yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +"O yes," she replied; "it does not take much trouble. There is no +one to harm us. Would you like a book to read till papa and mamma +come home; here is my Testament; or would you like I should read to +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Read to me," said the man. +</P> + +<P> +As Alice read from the history of Jesus, the tears ran down the +robber's cheeks; he said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +When the curate came home, he repeated Alice's invitation to dine. +The man accepted it. After dinner, when he thanked Alice and her +father for their kindness to him, he said to the curate, "Your +daughter is an angel, and has saved me from sin. I go away a better +man than I came." +</P> + +<P> +He then confessed the evil intentions with which he had entered the +house, told how Alice's trusting, gentle kindness had disarmed him, +and promised the curate that he would henceforward be a better man. +</P> + +<P> +I do not mean to say that Alice never did any wrong thing. She was, +however, so sorry for a fault, she repented so soon, and then did +all she could to repair it, that no one could help forgiving her. +She had a trick of squinting now and then. Her mother thought that +my curls perplexed the bright eyes under them; and, to prevent the +evil, drew up all the pretty locks in a bunch, tied them together, +and said, "Now, Alice, your hair is all out of the way, and you will +not squint." +</P> + +<P> +Alice was annoyed by this; she was a little vain of my beauty, and +the disregard of her looks, which she thought these words indicated, +fretted her. +</P> + +<P> +Her father saw this, and, to make the tying less disagreeable, said +to her, one day, "Alice, I see you don't like to have your hair tied +up; you don't think it reasonable. Come now, bear it patiently for a +month; and, at the end of that time, I will give you the little work +box I am ornamenting with straw." +</P> + +<P> +Alice agreed, and promised to be patient, and to keep her hair tied +up. +</P> + +<P> +During the month, it happened that Alice was invited to a little +party of girls at her aunt's. +</P> + +<P> +Alice hoped that her father and mother would absolve her from the +promise, that afternoon; but no, her mother only tied up her hair +with a new ribbon for the occasion. I, with all my beautiful curls, +was drawn away from her dear face as far as possible. Alice found +this hard to bear. +</P> + +<P> +As she was on the way to the party, she could hardly keep from +crying. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the matter?" said her father. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, father," said Alice, "only a little headache; mother has +tied my hair too tight." +</P> + +<P> +"Loosen it," said her father. +</P> + +<P> +Alice did loosen it, so that the string was just ready to come off. +</P> + +<P> +When she arrived at her aunt's, where her father left her, I was +just escaping from my hateful confinement, and her aunt took hold of +the hair as the string fell on the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I tie it on again, Alice, or shall your pretty hair go just +so? I don't see the use of tying it, but, if you really wish it, my +dear, just step up stairs, and Jane will do it for you very nicely. +Perhaps your mother would choose it to be tied; she is very +particular. It is a pity to confine such beautiful curls, but, if it +must be so, we can't help it. Will you go up stairs? Here is the +string; it dropped on the floor." +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Alice, "it is of no consequence;" and she put the string +into her pocket. +</P> + +<P> +Again I fell upon her beautiful forehead, and kissed her rosy +cheeks; and every one admired my beauty. +</P> + +<P> +Alice tried to forget that she was breaking her promise, and enjoyed +herself pretty well. +</P> + +<P> +When she went home, her mother said, "Why, Alice, your hair is all +over your face; how comes that?" +</P> + +<P> +"The string was nearly off when I went in, and then it fell on the +floor, and aunt said I looked better without it. Here is the string, +which she picked up." +</P> + +<P> +"I should have thought your aunt would have let you go up to Jane, +and have it tied properly; you should have asked her leave." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose," said the father, "that Alice felt too shy. It is no +matter for one day. Alice, I dare say, kept her promise as well as +she could; and, next week, she shall have her box; a right pretty +one it is." +</P> + +<P> +Alice kissed her father and mother, and went to bed; but there was a +little cloud between her and the all-pure Being to whom she prayed +that night, and her precious tears wetted my locks, ere she went to +sleep. +</P> + +<P> +Alice felt that she had not been true to her promise, and her +parents' entire trust was the most severe reproach. Still she could +not quite make up her mind to say so; and she tried not to think so. +She had set her heart upon the little work box made and ornamented +by her father whom she loved dearly. One day after another passed +away, and every day it became harder to confess her fault. How often +I heard her sigh during these days! Nothing makes a perfectly light +heart but entire uprightness. +</P> + +<P> +One day, her father called her to him, and said, "Come, Alice, and +tell me which color I shall use to ornament the border of your +box—blue or green?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just which you please, Father." +</P> + +<P> +"But you know it is for you, and I want to know what you like best." +</P> + +<P> +"If it should ever be mine, Father, I like blue best." +</P> + +<P> +"Blue it shall be," said her father. "It will be finished to-morrow, +and then your month for keeping your hair tied will end. I think +your eyes are better, and you have learned also that you can keep a +promise. You are my good child." +</P> + +<P> +Alice could not speak. She ran out of doors into her garden where +her father had made her a little arbor, and there, all alone, she +struggled with herself, till courage and truth prevailed. Then she +went back into her father's study where she found him still at work +on her box. +</P> + +<P> +"Almost done, Alice," said he; "see how pretty it is." "It must not +be mine, Father," said Alice, very quietly, for she was determined +to command herself. "I have not kept my promise, Father. I have +deceived you and mother. I don't deserve the box. Give it to my +cousin." Then she told her father the whole story, just as it was. +As she went on, she grew braver, and felt happier; so that she was +able to look up into her father's face, and say, very calmly, "I +could not take any pleasure in your pretty box, for I know I do not +deserve it. Please, dear Father, to tell Mother all about it, and +put away the box, if you choose not to give it to some one else. It +is very pretty, but it is not to be my box." +</P> + +<P> +The tears began to come in her eyes, and she turned to go out of the +room. Her father stopped her. "Come here, my Child," he said. "You +did wrong, but you have done all you could to repair your fault. You +will never again, I think, be guilty of falsehood. At the end of +another month, if you feel sure of yourself, come to me for your +box." +</P> + +<P> +"No, Father, that would seem like being paid for speaking the truth. +I should never ask for the box." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you rather I should give it to your cousin?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you please, I should;" and then the tears ran fast down her +cheeks. "You know my cousin Edith has very few pretty things. I +should like her to have it." +</P> + +<P> +"Take it, Alice, and give it to her yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"As your present, Father, not as mine. You know it is not, and +cannot be mine. I have been so unhappy at my untruth, that I think I +shall never commit such a fault again." +</P> + +<P> +Alice never did again, in the slightest thing, depart from the +strictest truth and uprightness, in action as well as in word. It +was common for her friends to say when there was a question about +any thing that had occurred, "We will ask Alice. She always tells +the exact truth." +</P> + +<P> +At last, Alice was a woman; and I, of course, led a more sober life, +as she became more serious. I grew so long and thick that, when she +took out her comb, and shook her head slightly, I fell in curls all +around her neck and shoulders, like a golden veil, and you could but +just see her laughing blue eyes, and white teeth through me. +</P> + +<P> +You may readily guess that the pretty Alice was beloved by all who +knew her; and, ere long, the son of the village apothecary won her +heart. He was a good-hearted fellow, but never fitted himself to be +of much use in the world. He took Alice to a distant village, where, +with his father's assistance, he set up as an apothecary, on rather +a small scale, of course; but Alice was used to simple fare and to +helping herself. +</P> + +<P> +All would have been well with them but for one thing—the husband +became a drunkard; not immediately—his love for his wife kept him +sober for some time. Nothing was more beautiful than the way they +lived for a year or two; but the habit of drinking a little, a habit +which he had formed in his father's shop, and which he intended to +cure, returned. The wretched man had not strength to resist it. +</P> + +<P> +He became fretful, and Alice, for the first time in her life, became +unhappy. She had never before heard any but the voice of kindness; +and now, from him she loved best in the world she received sometimes +sharp and disagreeable words. He was very sorry afterwards, and all +would seem well again, but he did not really reform, and, many a +time, my locks, falling over her innocent round cheek, were wetted +with her tears. +</P> + +<P> +Alice was good as an angel. She forgave her husband, believed him +when he promised to leave off drinking, and never said a harsh word +to him. James kept his promise for a month or two, but fell again, +and then more hopelessly; for, after he had drunk a little, he +feared his wife would know what he had done, and felt so unhappy +that he drank more to drown his feelings; and, for the first time, +he was brought home to his wife dead drunk. +</P> + +<P> +Alice tended her husband as if he were only a sick man; she had him +put into a nice bed, she washed and mended his soiled and torn +clothes, she was near him to catch his first word when he recovered +his senses, she never reproached him, she tried, by love, to win him +back to sobriety and duty, she wept, she prayed for him. +</P> + +<P> +He suffered all that man can from shame; he could not look her in +the face; he had destroyed the charm and glory of life; he was +unable, or rather he thought he was, to conquer his enemy; and, +before six years were at an end, partly from broken and ruined +health, and partly from utter misery, he fell into a rapid decline, +and died. +</P> + +<P> +Alice loved her husband; and never was sick man nursed with more +loving, cheerful patience than was he. He wept over his sins; he +asked her, with every returning and every setting sun, to forgive +him and to pray God to pardon him. +</P> + +<P> +She was an angel of pity and mercy to him, to the end. When she +leaned over him to kiss him, he would pull her beautiful hair—for +I was still beautiful—over his face which he was ashamed to show +when he thought of his folly and wickedness. Many a time have I felt +his hot tears of contrition as he pressed me against his sunken +cheeks, and to his parched lips. +</P> + +<P> +After her husband's death, the vicar of the parish came to see +Alice, and did all he could to comfort and aid her. +</P> + +<P> +She found that her husband had died largely in debt; that, when all +the stock in his shop was sold, and the creditors paid, there would +be nothing left for herself and two children. +</P> + +<P> +She did not want to go back to her old father's house, and burden +him with care and expense, and she resolved to open a little school +for small children in the cottage in which she lived. +</P> + +<P> +She had one spare room which she could let to an old lady who wanted +just such a home as Alice could give her. +</P> + +<P> +With a strong and hopeful heart, did Alice dedicate herself to the +work before her, of supporting and educating her two orphan +children. Alice's strict honesty had made her give up to her +husband's creditors every thing she had, except the barest +necessaries; and, now that she wanted to commence her school, she +felt very much the want of a little cash to buy a few indispensable +things. +</P> + +<P> +The grocer and butcher had offered to supply her on credit, till her +first payment from her scholars and boarder should come in. Still a +little ready money was essential to her to begin. She would not +borrow it, and was one day thinking what she should do, when her +eye, wandering over a newspaper which the vicar had kindly lent her, +fell on an advertisement offering a high price for handsome hair +long and thick enough to make wigs. +</P> + +<P> +Alice heard the good curate say that he was going to London on +business in a day or two, and her determination was made in a +moment. +</P> + +<P> +I said that Alice had kept nothing that she could do without; she +had, however, kept the white muslin gown she wore when she was +married. She thought she could not give this up. "I shall never wear +a white muslin gown again," she said, as she ripped out one of the +breadths and made herself two or three plain caps of it. +</P> + +<P> +The next day she rose early before the children were awake, and, +standing before a very small looking glass which she had kept to +dress her hair, she looked at me curling all over her precious head, +and hanging down upon her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"He loved these locks," said she, "and, for his sake, I would keep +them; but they had better be devoted to the good of our children. +Some school books will be worth more than all these golden locks. I +am glad the children are asleep, for they love to play with my hair, +and it would grieve them to see me cut it off." +</P> + +<P> +The good Alice took her scissors, and cut off lock after lock, till +all were gone, save a few which she left around her forehead. Then +she put on her simple muslin cap and tied it with a muslin string +under her chin. +</P> + +<P> +Just then, her boy awoke. Alice had laid him down on his bed, and +the first sight the little fellow saw, when he awoke, was his +mother's hair which almost covered him up. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mother, how could you do so? How could you cut off your pretty +hair, and put on that ugly cap? What would father say? You said we +must do what we thought would please him. It would not please him to +have you cut off your pretty hair;" and the child burst into an +agony of tears. +</P> + +<P> +"Would it not please him that you should have a spelling book and a +slate to write on, William? With this hair I can buy them for you. I +have no other riches now." +</P> + +<P> +The poor boy still wept. The hair was more to him, at that time, +than all learning. He could not then have believed that the time +would come, when he would remember with gratitude his mother's +sacrifice for him and his little sister. +</P> + +<P> +Alice gathered the locks, took from a drawer her last bit of blue +ribbon, and tied them, saying, "This is the way he liked to see my +hair tied when I was at my father's cottage. I shall never tie it so +again." +</P> + +<P> +When the good vicar came to see Alice, as he did every day, she met +him with me all nicely done up in a paper in her hands, and asked +him if he would be so good as to take me to the hair dresser who had +advertised for hair, make the best bargain he could for her, and, +with the proceeds, get the few necessaries for commencing her small +school. The good man cheerfully promised to do so, took the parcel +from Alice, and carried it to his own house. +</P> + +<P> +And so I bade farewell to dear Alice, and her neat cottage, and her +sweet children. I was parted forever from that innocent head that +had cherished only good and pure thoughts. I was no longer to be +dressed by her dear hands. I was never again to shade and adorn her +lovely face, nor fall in ringlets around her sloping shoulders, nor +ever tremble again with the beatings of her gay and generous heart, +as I often had when she let me fall over her neck and shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing that ever had life in it could be insensible to such a +sorrow as this. How I envied the few locks she kept around her +precious forehead! How I wished that scissors had never been +invented! +</P> + +<P> +The good curate, faithful to his promise, took me to the hair +dresser in London, according to the direction in the advertisement; +and, before opening the paper which contained me, told him the story +of Alice, of her trials, and of her excellent character and conduct, +of her present need, and of her purpose to support and educate her +children by her own efforts. He told him that there never was such a +beautiful head of hair, and that he hoped he would be willing to +give something handsome for it. +</P> + +<P> +When the old clergyman opened the paper, and exhibited me to the +hair dresser, he took me out as fondly as if I had been a baby, and +shook me so as to make the ringlets curl again, but they would not. +</P> + +<P> +I felt the difference between the old man's hard fingers, and rough +shake, and the soft touch of the dear Alice. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it not beautiful?" said the old man. +</P> + +<P> +"It is well enough," said the dealer. "I shall have to make a man's +wig of it. The curls will all boil out." +</P> + +<P> +You may imagine my horror at these words; and, as for the poor +vicar, he seemed thunderstruck. +</P> + +<P> +"If I had any money to spare," said he, "I would buy this beautiful +hair myself, and have it framed with a glass over it, and hang it up +in my best parlor, with that blue ribbon that looks so like her; +it's as handsome as a picture; and then her dear children should +have it at my death." +</P> + +<P> +Whether it was that the hair dresser was afraid of losing me, or +that his heart was slightly touched with compassion for Alice and +her orphan children, I know not; but he offered the good curate a +sum for me which satisfied him. +</P> + +<P> +As the curate gave me up, he untied the blue ribbon, folded it up +nicely, and put it into his pocket; and I think he dropped a tear as +he did so. +</P> + +<P> +The wig maker examined me again when he was by himself. "A fine head +of hair it really is," said he. "It will make a good wig for a +youngish sort of a man; and the curls will make it work easier." +</P> + +<P> +Then he tied me up with a piece of twine, and tossed me into a large +drawer with great bunches of hair of all colors and fineness. +</P> + +<P> +Here I remained for I know not how long, without air or light, in +this disagreeable company. At last, one day we were all taken out, +and what we were made to endure I now shudder to think of. We were +boiled, we were pulled and mauled and greased; in short, I wonder we +had a whole hair left; but, after undergoing every thing you can +imagine, I found myself on a pole in the shape of a gentleman's wig, +covered with high-scented pomatum and powder. +</P> + +<P> +No one would have recognized me as the same beautiful hair that had +adorned the head of Alice. There were a number of poles with wigs on +them close by me, and I knew, as a matter of course, that I must +look just like them. They looked perfectly hateful to me, and I felt +disgusted with myself, because I knew I resembled them. +</P> + +<P> +It is now a puzzle to me how men could have ever been so foolish as +to make such a thing as I am, to put on their heads; these great +unmeaning curls, this ugly club, as they called it, hanging down +behind, and this horrid grease and powder too. +</P> + +<P> +Most of my life, of course, has been passed in this horrid shape in +which you now see me; but the remembrance of my early days clings to +me, and the love of freedom, and the sense of beauty which I +acquired when the wind played through my natural curls as they +covered the head of my dear Alice, have never forsaken me. It was +then only that I truly lived. But, forgive me—I have the weakness +of old age, and love to talk of youthful pleasures. +</P> + +<P> +One morning, in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, when I +was just twenty-eight years old, a gentleman of middle age came into +the hair dresser's shop, and asked to look at his wigs. I was shown +to him with some others. After examining us all, and trying on +several, he chose me, because, he said, he thought I was made of the +finest hair. +</P> + +<P> +"This," said he, "will visit the American colonies, and probably +remain there, for that will, I think, be my home." +</P> + +<P> +I rejoiced to hear this, for I was weary of my present life, and +longed for some variety. +</P> + +<P> +The good gentleman who purchased me seemed well satisfied with my +looks; but, when I saw myself in the glass, upon his long, narrow +face, with his great bottle nose, and cheeks like the sides of a +sulky, and all my pretty curls and my bright color gone, I wonder +that each hair did not stand on end with fright; most likely it +would have stood up, but for weight of pomatum and powder. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after my owner purchased me, he set sail for America. As I was +his new and best wig, I was packed carefully in a box, and knew +nothing till he arrived here, and was settled in his place of +residence. +</P> + +<P> +The first time I was taken out of my box was on Sunday, when I was +carefully adjusted on the Squire's head. I call him Squire, for I +soon found that Squire was the title every one gave him, as he was +the most important personage in the town in which he lived. I was as +well pleased as a wig could be with the appearance of things in and +around the house I was to inhabit. It was in a village about thirty +miles from Boston, and was like an English country gentleman's +house. A wide hall passed through the middle of it, with a grand +staircase. From the doors at either end of the hall ran rows of elm +trees. One led to the high road, the other up a gentle hill, on the +top of which was a pretty burying ground with a path through it +leading to a small church. +</P> + +<P> +The Squire had a black man whom he called his boy, and who was, in +fact, his slave, but whom he treated like a friend and brother. +</P> + +<P> +Some years after, when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, the +Squire called Cato to him, and said, "Cato, you are no longer my +slave; you are free." +</P> + +<P> +"But, massa, you will not sell me." +</P> + +<P> +"No, Cato, you are a freeman; I have no right to sell you. I don't +think I ever had any right to sell you; but now the law of the land +makes you free, and I am glad of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I can stay with you of my own free will, massa." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Cato, you can stay or go, just as you please." +</P> + +<P> +"Then, massa, I stay with you for love, and not cause I am your +slave. Now I your friend." And Cato never left the Squire till the +day of his death. But to return to my story. +</P> + +<P> +The Squire, as I said, put me on very carefully, and then as carefully +put over me his three-cornered hat, and took his gold-headed cane, and, +with Cato behind him, walked reverently up the hill to church. +</P> + +<P> +I was accustomed to the Episcopal church, where dear Alice went +every Sunday; but this was a Presbyterian church, and I had never +been in one before. +</P> + +<P> +As I said, had not my hairs lost their power of motion by what I had +endured from the scissors, and the vile process of making me into my +present shape, every one of them would have risen up against the +so-called music in this church; but my misfortunes and pomatum kept me +quiet. +</P> + +<P> +The sermon was at least two hours long, and many a hitch did the +Squire give me before it was over; that was the beginning of the +little trick, which you see I have now, of jerking up a little on +one side occasionally. +</P> + +<P> +The Squire had brought with him from England a complete set of +furniture for his house; and, after some time, the things reached +our abode which was about thirty miles from the sea coast. +</P> + +<P> +What all these fine things were for was soon explained. The Squire, +one day, put me into my nice box, putting on an old wig which he +wore on week days. I soon found that we were in some kind of a +vehicle, and, ere long, we arrived at a hotel in Boston. But we did +not stay there long. The Squire was going to be married, and, as I +was his best wig, I, of course, adorned his head at the wedding. +</P> + +<P> +Who would have believed that I was the same hair that covered the +head of dear Alice when she was a bride? Then curling like +hyacinths, and glowing like sunshine, now stiff, dull and dead; +looking, as I thought then, and think now, like nothing human or +divine. +</P> + +<P> +It was the second time the Squire had been married, so he was very +sedate in his happiness. He brought home his bride in a few days, +and there, at his excellent, delightful country house, all was soon +arranged in the most orderly way possible. +</P> + +<P> +The lady had a proper pole arranged for my accommodation, and made +the Squire a nice velvet cap to wear in the evenings, when they were +alone, and he wished to be relieved of my weight. +</P> + +<P> +The relations of the Squire and his wife often visited them, and +always in parties, English fashion, and remained some days; and then +what feasting and merriment there was! +</P> + +<P> +The house was surrounded by beautiful woods, and near by was a +lovely pond; and young and gay hearts were often there to wake the +echoes with their cheerful, laughing voices. Cato played on the +violin, and, when the evenings were chilly or rainy, the young +people danced till the small hours of the night. +</P> + +<P> +All this I witnessed, for the Squire was a gentleman of the old +school, was always in his best clothes for his company, and gave no +sign of weariness till they retired to bed. +</P> + +<P> +I should mention that the Squire was a justice of the peace. As he +lived in a remote and very quiet country town, he had not many +culprits brought before him. But occasionally he was called upon to +decide upon the proper punishment of some young rogue, and now and +then he had to marry a couple. +</P> + +<P> +At these times, I was always smoothed and new pomatumed with the +greatest care, then put on very carefully, and examined in the +looking glass two or three times, and readjusted over and over, till +I was as even as justice itself, before the Squire took his +gold-headed cane, and proceeded to consider the case. +</P> + +<P> +Once a boy was brought before him for stealing chestnuts. Now there +was such an abundance of chestnuts in the town that they were almost +thought common property. It happened, however, that the Squire had +some fine chestnuts himself, and he wished it to be considered an +unpardonable thing to steal chestnuts. So he condemned the boy's +father to pay a very good price for those his son had stolen, +leaving it to the man from whom the chestnuts had been taken to say +how large the quantity was. +</P> + +<P> +This unjust decision made the man and his son very angry. But my +master was the Squire; and, in those old times, we retained a great +deal of the English reverence for a country gentleman. +</P> + +<P> +The son of this man, however, had not much reverence for any thing, +and was determined to be revenged upon the Squire, as you will see. +I, however, was the greatest sufferer. It so happened that the pew +in which the boy sat at church was directly behind the Squire's. The +boy carried a piece of shoemaker's wax to meeting with him, and +when, as was usually the case, the Squire's queue came over the edge +of the pew, the young rascal took the opportunity, when no one was +looking, to stick the short queue fast with the wax to the side of +the pew. +</P> + +<P> +When the Squire stood up, his wig was nearly jerked off his head, +and would have been quite off, but for the boy's father who, seeing +the good gentleman's danger, caught hold of me, tore off the horrid +wax, and then pushed me back into my place. +</P> + +<P> +All the foolish children in the church giggled at my expense. The +simple Squire, thinking it was a nail or a hook, thanked the man who +had aided him in his distress, and advised him to take out the +troublesome hook. Cato, however, shook his black head and said, +"Guess naughty Pickaninny did de queue of Massa's wig. Neber mind, +Cato no make trouble; queue no feelins; I smood him up. Dem +chestnuts in his gizzard, spoze." +</P> + +<P> +Not long after this, the poor Squire lost his wife. Her health had +always been very delicate, and he had been a most devoted husband. +</P> + +<P> +The Squire was a good man, and tried to find consolation in the only +way it may be found, in the religious performance of duty. He became +the benefactor of the village. He was the friend of all who needed +his aid. +</P> + +<P> +Now, my friends, I must pass over the next ten years. What I have +just related to you of the Squire passed in the year seventeen +hundred and eighty. Now follow me to the year seventeen hundred and +ninety-two. +</P> + +<P> +The Americans, by their wisdom and bravery, had won their +independence. +</P> + +<P> +The Squire had done his part for his country by furnishing money, +and by making his large retired mansion an asylum for all his +friends who were in want of it. +</P> + +<P> +He was now seventy years old; and a haler, heartier, more serene old +man was never seen. His house was the summer rendezvous of all his +young and his old friends. +</P> + +<P> +Well do I remember one beautiful afternoon, just before sunset, the +Squire's going to the glass, and adjusting me nicely, and then going +to the door, and looking up through the avenue of elms which were +young trees when I was first carried there, and saying, "It is time +my niece and her husband and children were here." +</P> + +<P> +In a few minutes, a carriage appeared with a lady and her son and +daughter in it. That little girl, then five years old, was +afterwards the mother of our little friend asleep yonder. +</P> + +<P> +Never was there a more cordial welcome given to friends than the +good Squire gave them, and never was welcome more acceptable. +</P> + +<P> +There were other friends in the house, and such frolicking and +laughing and dancing on the lawn you seldom see nowadays. +</P> + +<P> +For many years, the nieces and nephews and their children and +children's children came in this way to refresh body and soul at +their good uncle's; till childhood blossomed into youth, and youth +began to strengthen into maturity, and maturity to fade away into +age. Years gathered around the old man's head, but his vigor +remained. +</P> + +<P> +You need not bounce in that way, my friend musket, and you, Messrs. +tea-kettle and pitcher, need not try to turn up the noses you have +lost, at my using these flowery expressions. Remember that, for more +than half a century, I dwelt upon a human head. It is natural that I +should have gained something from it, and that I should speak +somewhat as human beings speak. +</P> + +<P> +I hope you will pardon my talkativeness; and, even if you think me +prosy, let me go on after my own fashion, and finish my story in my +own way, for I am very old, and can speak in no other way. Remember, +too, I shall never speak to you again." +</P> + +<P> +"Go on, go on," cried the old coat, cloak, and baize gown. +</P> + +<P> +The rest made no objection, and so the wig continued. "I assure you +it was a very interesting thing to me to witness the changes that +were going on among the Squire's visitors. I saw that child's mother +come, first as a young lady, then as a bride, then as a mother; and +then she came, first with one, then with two, and then with three +children; and then, each year, I saw that these children had grown +bigger, and it was pleasant, as I sat so quietly upon the old +Squire's head, to see them jump out of the carriage each year, run +up to the old man to receive his welcome, and then scamper off into +the garden and fields like so many young animals; it was pleasant to +watch their gleeful faces at his hospitable board, and to hear their +merry shouts; it was pleasant, on Sunday, to see them, with their +father and mother, follow the old gentleman respectfully at a +distance, through the avenue of elms to church, with their small, +solemn faces, just now and then slightly nodding to a buttercup and +snatching it up; while he, with me and his three-cornered hat on his +head, and his gold-headed cane in his hand, and his light drab suit +of clothes, all his dress of the same cloth, and his shoes with gold +buckles, strode along, while Cato, dressed in some of the Squire's +old clothes, walked close behind him like his shadow. You would have +thought my master forty instead of eighty. +</P> + +<P> +Year after year I witnessed this, till, as I said, the children were +youths, and their parents no longer young. Then the good Squire +began to be, as I am now, a little garrulous; he loved to tell old +stories more than once. But who was there that would not, with +patient love, listen to them for many a time? +</P> + +<P> +It was affecting to observe how all his dates were from the year +fifty. No matter what story he told, or when it really did happen, +he always finished by adding, "and that happened in the year fifty." +</P> + +<P> +All his furniture and plate were purchased in the year fifty. It was +to him the beginning of the world. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle," said one of his nieces one day to him, "let me try to dress +your wig; I think it wants it." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, this wig was bought in the year fifty, and looks well now. +It has done me good service." +</P> + +<P> +"How beautiful this avenue of elms is!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, they were set out in the year fifty." +</P> + +<P> +"You have a good housekeeper, uncle." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my dear, she came to me in the year fifty." +</P> + +<P> +And so on with every thing in and about his house, and so it was +with every event which had made an abiding mark on his memory. +</P> + +<P> +There was but one thing about which the good Squire showed the real +childishness of his old age, and that was his fruit. He had bushels +and bushels of apples and pears and peaches, but he never thought +them fit to eat till they were at least half rotten. +</P> + +<P> +His nephews and nieces were of a decidedly different opinion, but +did not like to debate the subject with him; so they had recourse to +a little trick. I don't think it was quite right. The Squire was in +the habit every day of gathering the ripe fruit in baskets, and +putting it in what he called especially his room; it was a sort of +half dressing, half business room. Here it was that he kept the pole +upon which he placed me at night. These baskets of fruit, if the +good man had had his own way, would have remained there till they +were all rotten like the heaps of windfalls which was the fruit he +told the family, and the children especially, they might eat. +</P> + +<P> +Now it was the custom of two or three roguish boys and girls, who +visited him, to gather baskets of this rotten fruit, and when the +good man had gone to bed, to carry them into this room, and put them +in the place of the baskets of sound ripe fruit, which they took for +themselves and others to eat. +</P> + +<P> +In a day or two, the good Squire would look at his baskets, and, +finding the fruit decaying, would call it fit to eat, bring it into +the parlor, and then call in the children, and say to them, "Here, +boys and girls, here is nice ripe fruit for you; you can just cut +out the rotten with your penknives;" and then he would distribute it +among them. +</P> + +<P> +The little monkeys, of course, could scarce repress their giggles. +</P> + +<P> +I can make no apology for their cheat, except that, upon this point, +the good man was really childish; and, as he did not eat the fruit +himself, or sell it, or do any thing with it, but give to the pigs +what was not eaten in the family, no one was wronged by the trick. +It was, in fact, a piece of sport. +</P> + +<P> +As you see, I had the benefit of being present at the whole of the +fun; and I can hear now, it seems to me, as plainly as I did then, +the suppressed laughter of these roguish children when they came +into the room where I was, to exchange baskets of rotten for baskets +of sound fruit. +</P> + +<P> +In his eighty-seventh year, the old man ran a race with one of these +children, and contrived, by an artifice, to win it. She got before +him; when, fearing he would hurt himself, she stopped to look after +him; he came up to her; and then, just pushing her back a little, +got before her to the goal, which was very near them. How he did +shout, as though he were only twenty, and what a hitch he gave me on +the occasion! +</P> + +<P> +In his ninety-seventh year he died. It was a pity he did not live to +be a hundred. The night before he died, he went into his room to put +me on my accustomed pole. He did not see clearly, and let me fall on +the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" said he, "the old head will fall too, before long. No matter; +it is time it should go. Here, Cato, help your old master." +</P> + +<P> +Cato was at hand, picked me up, put me in my place, and helped his +master to bed. +</P> + +<P> +I never saw the dear old man again. +</P> + +<P> +The next thing that I remember, is being put into a box and carried +I knew not whither. +</P> + +<P> +The first light I saw was the dim light of this garret. +</P> + +<P> +The mother of that little girl took me out; and as she put me on my +pole, which she had caused to be brought here also, "People may +laugh at me," said she, "but I will keep the dear old man's wig. It +seems to me a part of him, and is a memorial of the happy hours I +have passed under his hospitable roof." +</P> + +<P> +It is now one hundred and six years since I was born into this +world. For twenty-eight years I flourished on the beautiful head of +dear Alice. Ever since then, I have been only a wig. I am now +falling into utter decay. If any one were to shake me, I should fall +to pieces. I have, like many of you, my friends, since inhabiting +this garret, been abused and made fun of, by children. I was once +put upon the head of a donkey, while a boy with a fool's cap on his +head rode him, and took a love letter to a young man. I was also put +upon the head of a great monkey brought to the house for exhibition, +who took me off his head and threw me at the boys. Once, as you +know, I was made to play the mock judge on the head of a dog. Once +that little girl who sleeps there, used me to keep a litter of +kittens warm in, on a cold winter night. This nearly killed me, and +from that moment the children were forbidden to touch me. +</P> + +<P> +"I have now," concluded the wig, "only to ask your pardon, my +friends, for the impatience with which I have listened to your +stories when I thought them too long, and for the truly human vanity +and inconsistency which made me tell the longest story myself. But I +knew that no one waited for me. I shall certainly never speak more. +These are my last words. Farewell." +</P> + +<P> +Just at these words, it seemed to me as if the wig gradually +dissolved into a bright halo. Then suddenly it fell into golden +ringlets all so soft and graceful and beautiful; while I looked, +they seemed to shade such a lovely, innocent face, that I knew it +must be that of dear Alice looking like an angel in heaven. +</P> + +<P> +I awoke very happy. There was every thing in the old garret just as +I first described it, and all as quiet and still as if nothing had +happened." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Talkative Wig, by Eliza Lee Follen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALKATIVE WIG *** + +***** This file should be named 4048-h.htm or 4048-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/4/4048/ + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Talkative Wig + +Author: Eliza Lee Follen + +Posting Date: June 11, 2009 [EBook #4048] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: October 20, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALKATIVE WIG *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + + +THE TALKATIVE WIG + + +BY + +MRS. FOLLEN + + + +With Illustrations by Billings and others + + + + + + +THE OLD GARRET. + + +"Pray, dear Mother," said the boys, "tell us what else you heard in +the old garret." + +"You know," said she, "it was on a rainy Sunday when my mother sent +me up there with my book, Pilgrim's Progress. This book always +delighted me, and set my fancy to work in some way or other. + +After reading a while, I began to look at the queer old things in +the garret. Pussy began to purr louder and louder, and at last I +fell again into the same dreamy sleep that I was in at first. + +Presently I heard the same confused sound which I heard before when +the old tenants of the garret began to speak. There seemed also to +be a slight motion among them, and a sort of mysterious appearance +came over the whole apartment, as if they were all living, though +very shadowy beings. Presently I heard the creak of the curling +tongs, and he uttered these words:-- + +"I think we have all been wronged by our friend the wig; he approved +of our all relating our own histories, and promised that, after we +had done so, he would give us his, frankly and truly, as we have +done; instead of that he, as well as the rest of us, fell asleep +when our friend spinning wheel related her story; and, when we all +waked up, he did not fulfil his promise. I move that he be requested +now to give us a faithful account of his whole life, till he was +consigned with us to this dark, gloomy old place. I probably have +been more intimately acquainted with him than any one present; for +once or twice I have assisted in smoothing, or rather frizzing, his +ruffled hairs, and making him fit for company; and, with your leave, +my friends, I urge him in your name to relate his history." A sort +of hum of approbation sounded through the long, dark old garret, and +then the wig spoke. + +"Friend Frizzle is right: I did agree to relate my adventures, but I +said I would wait till all had told their stories; now, here are two +of this brilliant company that have not said one word of themselves, +that comical coat and that old cloak; after they have related their +history I will relate mine. The wig hitched a little on his block, +and was silent. + +"I am ready," said the coat, "to tell all I know of myself, and I +shall not keep you long, I trust. My friend the baize gown and I had +the same origin on the back of a sheep, only I was of a nicer +texture, and had, from my earliest days, a more refined character; +and, of course, was used for higher purposes. Major Sword there may +know perhaps that I had as much to do with making the major of +Cadets as he had, only I did not make people run when they looked at +me, as he says he did. + +I was originally of the most delicate white, and I was made into one +of the very first coats that ever appeared on the parade as one of +the Governor's guards. I think I did more to make the major than my +Lord Sword did. Think of a major without a coat! He would not be a +major, for a moment. He would be hooted at. Now, even were he +without a sword, and had me, such as I once was, on his back, he +would still be known as a major of the Cadets." + +"Self-glorification! Come to your story," cried the musket, with a +bounce. + +"I will," said the coat. "I was, as I have told you, the major's +military coat, admired by all who looked at me; and I appeared often +on parade days till he gave up his office, and left this country, +when I was left hanging up in his dressing room, and all my glory +was gone. + +As the major's boys grew bigger, they would often beg their mother +to allow them to put me on. The rogues were so short then that I +trailed on the ground. I was even so far abused as to be worn by +girls. This tried my feelings sorely, but I was forced to submit. +Once I was so far disgraced as to be worn by one of the girls while +she danced with her brother who was dressed like a monkey, with a +tail over a yard long; and this was not all, she pulled the monkey's +tail too hard, it came off, and then the monkey boy seized the tail +and beat me with it, meaning to beat his sister, but I got the worst +of it. So I lived to be made fun of, and lived for nothing else. + +At last, the major's wife, our dear mistress, took me one day into +her gentle hands, and after examining me carefully and making up her +mind to the act, deliberately took her scissors, ripped me up into +pieces, and sent me to the dyer's, to be colored brown. This was too +horrid--I was soused into the vilest mixture you can imagine, and +suffered every thing abominable, such as being stretched within an +inch of my life, and then almost burned to death. At last, I came +out with the color you now see me, not a handsome brown, but a real +sickish rhubarb color. My dear mistress laughed when she looked at +me. "This is a dose," said she, "but it will do for an every day +coat for Jonathan, and I can make it myself, with Keziah Vose's aid; +so I will not grieve about it. So Keziah was sent for and set to +work. + +Now Jonathan was a white-haired, chubby boy, and this was his first +coat. Keziah went by her eye altogether. She took no measures except +for the sleeves, and these she said she would make large and long, +to allow for Jonathan's growing. She made me so broad behind that +one brass button could not see the other, although they were, as you +see, almost as large as a small plate; the skirts came down so as to +hide the calves of his legs, and were so full as nearly to meet +before. My sleeves had a regular slouch. There was no hollow in the +back, and I looked as if I was made for one of the boys' snow men, +not for a human being. + +When I was finished and put on for the first time, all the children +and their mother were present, as it happened. My droll looks and +rhubarb color, the comical expression of Jonathan's face,--for he +was a great rogue,--and his sun-bleached hair, half hidden by my +high, stiff collar, set them all into a gale of laughter. He took +hold of my full skirts, one on each side, and began to dance; and +even his mother and Keziah laughed too. Nothing was to be done. A +few times, the mother of Jonathan tried to induce him to wear me at +home, for she could not afford, she said, to lose all I had cost +her; but it was all in vain--giggle, giggle, went all the children +when they saw me, and I had to be hung up, as you see me now. +Whenever they wanted a comical dress in any of their plays, I was +brought out, and that little girl asleep there, and her brothers +still amuse themselves with my comical looks. Alas! I am of no other +use in this world. + +The young people used to amuse themselves by acting little plays, or +some other nonsense; and when they wanted to make a very ridiculous +figure, I noticed they came for me. I always observed that whoever +had me on talked through his nose, with an ugly drawl, and used +vulgar words and expressions, such as "Now you don't! Do tell! +Sartin true!" + +Once they put me on a dancing bear. This was insulting. I don't like +to think of it. I try to forget it. + +In short, every one laughs when I am present, for some reason or +other; and I suppose I have been kept on account of the merriment I +have afforded the family. After all, my friends, I am not sure that +he who adds to the innocent gayety of people is not as valuable a +person as one who has more dignity, and who never made any one laugh +in his life. + +I have done, my friends--the old cloak is a more serious, dignified +person than I, and will now, I trust, give us her history." + +The old cloak began to speak in a different tone from that of the +coat. I cannot say the tone was gloomy, though it was very serious. +It was a kindly, affectionate tone, that made you not unhappy, but +thoughtful. "I agree," said she, "with my neighbor who has just +spoken, that no one deserves better of society than he who promotes +its innocent merriment. No bad person can know what true gayety of +heart is. Goodness and cheerfulness are like substance and shadow; +where the one is, the other will always follow. + +I was made of German wool; and, in my country, the people all laugh +and sing. They keep still a saying of old Martin Luther, which runs, +if I remember rightly,-- + +"Wo man singt, leg' ich mich freilich nieder. Bose Menschen haben +keine Lieder." + +"Keep to plain English, you Hushan!" shouted the musket with a kick. + +"I am sorry to hurt your feelings, my old soldier," said the good +natured cloak. "I think, however, it is rather hard of you to keep +the name of Hessian as a term of reproach forever, just because a +few poor miserable fellows once came over here to fight you. Was it +not enough to have treated them as you say you did in the Jerseys? +For the benefit of you and those less prejudiced, I will translate +the couplet:-- + + "Where I singing hear, + I lay me, free from fear. + Men intent on wrong + Never have a song." + + +I was a singer myself once during the short time when I was +connected with one of dame spinning wheel's relatives. I am not even +a laugher now. Still I am contented and cheerful, and I remember +past trials without any bitterness. I went through all processes of +carding, spinning, weaving, dyeing, stretching, dressing, &c., and +was at last placed in a shop for sale. A beautiful young girl +purchased me for her bridal pelisse. Never did a happier heart beat +than did hers on the Sunday after she was married, when she wore me +to the church, holding by her husband's arm. I could not but partake +of the pleasure which she received from the gentle pressure of his +arm when she put hers within his, saying, "I am glad, dear, you like +my pelisse so much." + +O, how happy we all were! How proud my mistress was of me! How proud +I was of her! I hate to pass hastily over these happy days, but I +suppose the history of them would not be very interesting to any of +my hearers; for one day was very much like another. Never did any +garment cover a more innocent, joyful heart than that of my +mistress. + +I lasted well for some years, but my sleeves, at last, became +threadbare; soon after, there were actual holes in them, and holes +also in my waist; I was, I must confess, a shabby-looking pelisse. + +My dear mistress took me into her hands one day, and, after +examining me all over, said, with a sigh, "I cannot wear it any +longer; I must give it up." At last, her expression brightened and +she added, "I can give it to cousin Jane; I am very tall, and she is +very short. The skirt is good, and she can make a cloak of it; and +so my precious pelisse will still be where I can see it." + +Forthwith I was sent to cousin Jane, with a very pretty note +explaining to her the reasons why her cousin took the liberty of +offering her the old pelisse. Cousin Jane wanted a cloak, and could +not afford to buy one; so I was carefully ripped up and turned, and +made into a very respectable garment. + +Cousin Jane was a dressmaker; and, in her service, I learned +something of what dressmakers have to endure. She had not been long +engaged in her trade; and, at first, she would put me on in the +morning with a brisk, vigorous manner, but in the evening, when she +returned home, how differently she took me up! how differently she +threw me over her weary shoulders! + +Soon she ceased to put me on in the morning in the same strong, +elastic manner, but took me up languidly, and as if she dreaded the +day, and, when she went into the air, wrapped me very closely about +her, just as if I was her only comfort, and pressed me to her heart, +as if in hopes it would ache less. + +Poor dear cousin Jane, my heart aches to think of her. Day after +day, from morning till night, and often till the next day began, she +toiled and toiled, stooping over her work, sewing, sewing, hour +after hour, and day after day, stooping all the time, till her eyes +lost their brightness, her step all its elasticity, till her +shoulders grew round, and her health failed. + +O, had those for whom she labored, for her small day's wages, but +observed how the lamp of life was gradually going out, they would +not have allowed her so to work without any respite; they would have +made her take better care of her own health; they would have sent +her home early; they would not have allowed her to work thirteen or +fourteen hours a day in their service. + +There was one family in which she worked where the master and +mistress insisted that at one o'clock Jane should lay aside her +work, and walk till two, when they dined. Then they insisted upon +her dining at their own table, and tried to make her meal a social +and pleasant one. + +O, these were white days for poor Jane. Could I not tell when she +was going to work in this family by the way she threw me over her +shoulders? Did I not feel her gentle heart beating with unwonted +warmth as she came home from this family before eight o'clock, +accompanied by the truly good man of the house or some trusty +person? When she hung me up in her small bed room, did I not notice +her grateful, happy smile? She felt that she was recognized by these +good people as a sister and friend, and that the words which we hear +at church and read in the Bible, "All men are brethren," were not +mere words with them. + +These evenings she would make her small fire, and sometimes indulge +herself in reading a little while; she would go to bed early, and +did not look so pale in the morning. + +Had all the customers of cousin Jane been as kind and considerate as +these good people were, she might have lived; and I should, perhaps, +have continued in her possession; but life was too hard for her,--she +struggled with it for many years, and then her sweet spirit turned +wearily away from it; she grew weaker and weaker, the color grew +brighter and brighter on her cheek, and the light in her eye; she +looked like a spirit; and, ere long, she was one. + +My first owner came, as soon as she heard how ill Jane was, and took +her home to this house in the country. Here our good mistress nursed +her poor cousin, and made the last days as happy as she could; but +Jane was weary of this life, and longed for a better one. She passed +away as gently and sweetly as a summer evening cloud or a dying +flower. + +Our mistress said to her husband, "All Jane's clothes, except this +dear cloak, I have given to the poor. This I must keep myself; for +it was one of my wedding garments, and dear Jane has made it all the +dearer to me. I shall keep it to lend to friends who are caught here +in the rain; it shall be called the friend's cloak, and shall always +be kept in the closet in the hall, close at hand." + +Now, I suppose every one knows of how much use such a cloak is in a +family. Never was a cloak more employed than I, and for all sorts of +things. I was used to play dumb orator. I was at every one's +service. I don't know how they ever did without me. + +Don't be astonished that I did not wear out; my lining was strong, +and I tell you an old cloak has a charmed life; you cannot wear it +out; like charity, it suffereth long and is kind. + +As my dear mistress's children grew up, I was treated very much as +you all have been; that is to say, with no respect at all. What a +different life was mine from that which I led with dear, gentle +cousin Jane. Peace be with her sweet spirit! + +One prank which the boys played some years after Jane's death, I +must relate, and then I have done. The eldest, whose name was +Willie, took me, the evening before thanksgiving day, and, having +dressed himself up in some of the cook's dirty old clothes, and hung +a basket on his arm, put me over his shoulders, and I went begging +of all the neighbors for something to keep thanksgiving with. He +disguised his voice by putting cotton wool in his mouth, and I +wonder myself how I came to know him. Two or three boys of his +acquaintance went with him, all dressed as beggars; and a grand +frolic they had. + +They went to one house where a man lived that made great pretensions +to religion and goodness, but who the boys strongly suspected was +not very compassionate to the poor. + +"Please," said Willie, "give us a little flour and raisins for our +mother to make a thanksgiving pudding with to-morrow." His answer +was a slam of the door in his face. + +"Let us go to Granny Horton's," said one of the boys; "she has not +gone to bed yet." + +"O," said Willie, "you know she has nothing but what mother sends +her, or some of the neighbors. It would be a shame. I carried her a +pair of chickens this morning, and some flour and raisins; and it is +a shame to beg of her, she is so kind. But won't it be funny if she +gives us something, when Squire Marsh would not; at any rate, she'll +not slam the door in our faces. Come, let's go quickly, before she +puts out her little light and goes to bed. I bet she'll give us one +of her chickens. But let us take whatever she gives us, just for the +fun, and for fear we should be found out." + +Willie was to be the spokesman. He felt rather queerly at first; but +the fun of the thing was too tempting, so he agreed to speak. He was +dressed as a girl, and wrapped me closely about him, as if he was +very cold. He had on an old straw bonnet, and his face was painted, +so that she could not recognize him, he knew. + +They knocked at Granny Horton's door, and she, in a kind, gentle +voice, replied, "Come in!" Willie, pretending to be a girl, told how +she and her brother and sister had come from the farther part of the +town, where they lived in the woods with a mother who was very old, +and had hardly any thing to eat; and how they wanted something good +to carry to her for thanksgiving day--a little flour, or a chicken, +or any thing; that it was too hard for his dear mother to have +nothing but beans on that day; that beans were what they lived on +commonly. + +He looked so mournful, and spoke in such a mournful tone that the +dear old woman, after thinking one moment, said to him, "I have two +chickens, a quart of flour, and two pounds of raisins, sent to me by +a good lady this morning, and brought to me by a real good little +boy called Willie. I can't ask their leave, but I guess they would +not scold me for giving your mother half of what he brought me; so +you shall have it, dear. 'It's more blessed to give than to +receive.' 'The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be His +name.'" + +While she was saying over these blessed words, she was busy dividing +the flour and the raisins, and putting them and the chicken into the +basket which Willie gave her. + +They all thanked the old woman very kindly, and went off with her +flour and chicken. + +"What shall we do with it all?" said they, as soon as they were out +of the house. + +"Let us," said Willie, "beg all we can every where, and get our +basket full, and carry it back to her, and, when she is asleep, get +into her house again, and put it on her hearth. I know how to open +the window on the outside when she thinks it fast." + +This was a good joke for the boys; so they went from house to house, +and, except at the squire's and one other place, got something from +every one, till, at last, their basket was full. Then they went +home, and got a peck of apples from their mother. + +Willie then led the way to Granny Horton's again. They looked in at +the window, and, by the light of the few embers still burning, saw +the good woman asleep in her great, old-fashioned chair, with her +spectacles on, and by her side a little stand on which lay her Bible +open at the place where she had been reading. + +"I can get in," said Willie, "and put the basket down by her side +before she wakes." + +Accordingly, he went to a little window in the back part of the +house, climbed in, came softly into the room where she was, and set +the baskets, all running over with good things, down on the hearth. +Willie had hardly got back to the window, when the good woman waked +up; and there, directly before her eyes, stood the baskets. She took +them up, and looked at them for some minutes before she took any +thing out. At last, she began to examine their contents. When she +came to her chicken and flour and raisins, in the very papers in +which she had wrapped them; she looked up and clasped her hands with +such astonishment, with such a look of wonder and gratitude, that +the boys, in their glee, laughed outright, and so loud that she +heard them. + +She ran to the window, but they were gone; and she never knew how it +was that her chicken and flour brought her back seven fold. + +When next the cook went to see her, with me on,--I was every body's +cloak,--the old lady told her the whole story of finding the chicken +and flour, and so many other good things with them. The secret was +kept; and it was Granny Horton's firm faith that it was the wings of +angels she heard when she went to the window. Indeed she thought she +had seen the wings, for as Willie turned to run, he forgot to hold +me tight, and the wind blew me up so as to hide him entirely, and +she took me for great dark wings. + +I fear you may be weary of my story. I have much more that I could +relate, but I have already been too long. + +I am, as you see, ragged and worn, but the dear family have an +affection for me still, as well as for all the rest of us; and so I +am allowed to remain here in this most respectable company. I trust +the wig will now give us his history for which we have waited so +long." + +"There is time enough before eight o'clock for the story of the +wig," said Frank, "if you can remember it, Mother. He ought to tell +his story now, as he promised." + +"As the wig began to speak," said their mother, "he gave a slight +hitch on one side, just as if some one pushed him up a little, and +then, after a short pause, began thus: "You will be astonished, +perhaps, to know that it is more than a hundred years since I first +saw the light. None of you have lived so long, or seen as much as I +have. I cannot tell all I have seen or known. It would take too +long, and weary you too much. I can only give a slight sketch of my +long life. + +In the year seventeen hundred and fifty, the baby head upon which I +grew came into this strange world in which we live. O, how happy was +the mother who saw me for the first time! How full was her joy when +she stroked the small head of her little girl, and exclaimed, "How +beautiful and soft her hair is! softer than velvet or satin." Even +then, every one said, "What a beautiful head of hair! What a lovely +baby!" + +The little girl whose head I adorned was the daughter of a poor +vicar who lived with his wife in an obscure country town in England. + +Alice was their fifth child, but their only daughter. She was very +beautiful, and, I may say it surely without vanity now, I was her +greatest ornament. I was of a beautiful auburn color, and fell in +thick clusters all over her happy, gentle head, and shaded her +laughter-loving face. After a day of hard work, how fond her mother +was of taking her little pet in her lap, and twisting up every curl +in nice order under her white linen night-cap, before putting her to +bed! Her father, too, would wind my ringlets around his great +fingers, made hard and rough with toil in the garden, and would kiss +every one of them, and pray God to bless the young head on which +they grew. + +As the dear head grew larger, I grew larger and thicker. Every one +who saw me noticed me. One would say, "It looks like a pot of +hyacinths"; another, "It has caught the sunshine and kept it." + +What a pleasant life I led! When Alice grew a large girl, she became +something of a romp, and one of her favorite amusements was to go to +the top of a hill near her father's house, when there was a high +wind, and let it blow through her curls, and sing and shout and +dance from the fulness of her joy. When she came home, she would say +"Mother, the wind has been combing my hair." + +O the horrid combing that I had to endure every morning! One must be +a head of curly hair to know how terrible is a comb. + +If you will not think me too long, I must talk a little more about +the dear Alice, and tell you what I witnessed till I was separated +from her." + +"Go ahead," said the old musket. + +"I must tell you how her sweetness and goodness once saved the house +from robbery. It was the custom of her father and mother, on Sunday, +to lock up the house, while they went to church. A pot of pork and +beans, and a pudding of Indian meal was put in the oven to bake for +their dinner. + +One Sunday, as Alice had a heavy cold, they left her at home. She +was then fourteen years old, and felt herself quite equal to taking +charge of the house. + +It was generally known that the curate's house was locked up on +Sunday; and a poor, foolish, as well as wicked fellow, determined to +take that opportunity to help himself to the good curate's silver, +or any other valuable, he could find in the house. It happened that +the man took the Sunday when Alice was left at home for his wicked +purpose. + +When he came to the door which he intended to break open, he was +admitted by Alice, who saw him coming. She asked him to come in and +sit down, then inquired if he had travelled far, and set before him +some bread and butter and cold water. + +"My father is a minister," she said, "and always asks travellers to +stay. We have some dinner in the oven, and we shall all of us like +to have you stay and dine. You look pale and tired; you had better +stay." + +These words Alice said with such a sweet, confiding earnestness, +that the wicked purpose died away from the heart of the intended +thief. He felt as if he was in the presence of an angel. He looked +at her in wonder. All the evil in him seemed to depart. + +"You are very good," he said. "Do you take care of the house all +alone by yourself?" + +"O yes," she replied; "it does not take much trouble. There is no +one to harm us. Would you like a book to read till papa and mamma +come home; here is my Testament; or would you like I should read to +you?" + +"Read to me," said the man. + +As Alice read from the history of Jesus, the tears ran down the +robber's cheeks; he said nothing. + +When the curate came home, he repeated Alice's invitation to dine. +The man accepted it. After dinner, when he thanked Alice and her +father for their kindness to him, he said to the curate, "Your +daughter is an angel, and has saved me from sin. I go away a better +man than I came." + +He then confessed the evil intentions with which he had entered the +house, told how Alice's trusting, gentle kindness had disarmed him, +and promised the curate that he would henceforward be a better man. + +I do not mean to say that Alice never did any wrong thing. She was, +however, so sorry for a fault, she repented so soon, and then did +all she could to repair it, that no one could help forgiving her. +She had a trick of squinting now and then. Her mother thought that +my curls perplexed the bright eyes under them; and, to prevent the +evil, drew up all the pretty locks in a bunch, tied them together, +and said, "Now, Alice, your hair is all out of the way, and you will +not squint." + +Alice was annoyed by this; she was a little vain of my beauty, and +the disregard of her looks, which she thought these words indicated, +fretted her. + +Her father saw this, and, to make the tying less disagreeable, said +to her, one day, "Alice, I see you don't like to have your hair tied +up; you don't think it reasonable. Come now, bear it patiently for a +month; and, at the end of that time, I will give you the little work +box I am ornamenting with straw." + +Alice agreed, and promised to be patient, and to keep her hair tied +up. + +During the month, it happened that Alice was invited to a little +party of girls at her aunt's. + +Alice hoped that her father and mother would absolve her from the +promise, that afternoon; but no, her mother only tied up her hair +with a new ribbon for the occasion. I, with all my beautiful curls, +was drawn away from her dear face as far as possible. Alice found +this hard to bear. + +As she was on the way to the party, she could hardly keep from +crying. + +"What is the matter?" said her father. + +"Nothing, father," said Alice, "only a little headache; mother has +tied my hair too tight." + +"Loosen it," said her father. + +Alice did loosen it, so that the string was just ready to come off. + +When she arrived at her aunt's, where her father left her, I was +just escaping from my hateful confinement, and her aunt took hold of +the hair as the string fell on the floor. + +"Shall I tie it on again, Alice, or shall your pretty hair go just +so? I don't see the use of tying it, but, if you really wish it, my +dear, just step up stairs, and Jane will do it for you very nicely. +Perhaps your mother would choose it to be tied; she is very +particular. It is a pity to confine such beautiful curls, but, if it +must be so, we can't help it. Will you go up stairs? Here is the +string; it dropped on the floor." + +"No," said Alice, "it is of no consequence;" and she put the string +into her pocket. + +Again I fell upon her beautiful forehead, and kissed her rosy +cheeks; and every one admired my beauty. + +Alice tried to forget that she was breaking her promise, and enjoyed +herself pretty well. + +When she went home, her mother said, "Why, Alice, your hair is all +over your face; how comes that?" + +"The string was nearly off when I went in, and then it fell on the +floor, and aunt said I looked better without it. Here is the string, +which she picked up." + +"I should have thought your aunt would have let you go up to Jane, +and have it tied properly; you should have asked her leave." + +"I suppose," said the father, "that Alice felt too shy. It is no +matter for one day. Alice, I dare say, kept her promise as well as +she could; and, next week, she shall have her box; a right pretty +one it is." + +Alice kissed her father and mother, and went to bed; but there was a +little cloud between her and the all-pure Being to whom she prayed +that night, and her precious tears wetted my locks, ere she went to +sleep. + +Alice felt that she had not been true to her promise, and her +parents' entire trust was the most severe reproach. Still she could +not quite make up her mind to say so; and she tried not to think so. +She had set her heart upon the little work box made and ornamented +by her father whom she loved dearly. One day after another passed +away, and every day it became harder to confess her fault. How often +I heard her sigh during these days! Nothing makes a perfectly light +heart but entire uprightness. + +One day, her father called her to him, and said, "Come, Alice, and +tell me which color I shall use to ornament the border of your +box--blue or green?" + +"Just which you please, Father." + +"But you know it is for you, and I want to know what you like best." + +"If it should ever be mine, Father, I like blue best." + +"Blue it shall be," said her father. "It will be finished to-morrow, +and then your month for keeping your hair tied will end. I think +your eyes are better, and you have learned also that you can keep a +promise. You are my good child." + +Alice could not speak. She ran out of doors into her garden where +her father had made her a little arbor, and there, all alone, she +struggled with herself, till courage and truth prevailed. Then she +went back into her father's study where she found him still at work +on her box. + +"Almost done, Alice," said he; "see how pretty it is." "It must not +be mine, Father," said Alice, very quietly, for she was determined +to command herself. "I have not kept my promise, Father. I have +deceived you and mother. I don't deserve the box. Give it to my +cousin." Then she told her father the whole story, just as it was. +As she went on, she grew braver, and felt happier; so that she was +able to look up into her father's face, and say, very calmly, "I +could not take any pleasure in your pretty box, for I know I do not +deserve it. Please, dear Father, to tell Mother all about it, and +put away the box, if you choose not to give it to some one else. It +is very pretty, but it is not to be my box." + +The tears began to come in her eyes, and she turned to go out of the +room. Her father stopped her. "Come here, my Child," he said. "You +did wrong, but you have done all you could to repair your fault. You +will never again, I think, be guilty of falsehood. At the end of +another month, if you feel sure of yourself, come to me for your +box." + +"No, Father, that would seem like being paid for speaking the truth. +I should never ask for the box." + +"Would you rather I should give it to your cousin?" + +"If you please, I should;" and then the tears ran fast down her +cheeks. "You know my cousin Edith has very few pretty things. I +should like her to have it." + +"Take it, Alice, and give it to her yourself." + +"As your present, Father, not as mine. You know it is not, and +cannot be mine. I have been so unhappy at my untruth, that I think I +shall never commit such a fault again." + +Alice never did again, in the slightest thing, depart from the +strictest truth and uprightness, in action as well as in word. It +was common for her friends to say when there was a question about +any thing that had occurred, "We will ask Alice. She always tells +the exact truth." + +At last, Alice was a woman; and I, of course, led a more sober life, +as she became more serious. I grew so long and thick that, when she +took out her comb, and shook her head slightly, I fell in curls all +around her neck and shoulders, like a golden veil, and you could but +just see her laughing blue eyes, and white teeth through me. + +You may readily guess that the pretty Alice was beloved by all who +knew her; and, ere long, the son of the village apothecary won her +heart. He was a good-hearted fellow, but never fitted himself to be +of much use in the world. He took Alice to a distant village, where, +with his father's assistance, he set up as an apothecary, on rather +a small scale, of course; but Alice was used to simple fare and to +helping herself. + +All would have been well with them but for one thing--the husband +became a drunkard; not immediately--his love for his wife kept him +sober for some time. Nothing was more beautiful than the way they +lived for a year or two; but the habit of drinking a little, a habit +which he had formed in his father's shop, and which he intended to +cure, returned. The wretched man had not strength to resist it. + +He became fretful, and Alice, for the first time in her life, became +unhappy. She had never before heard any but the voice of kindness; +and now, from him she loved best in the world she received sometimes +sharp and disagreeable words. He was very sorry afterwards, and all +would seem well again, but he did not really reform, and, many a +time, my locks, falling over her innocent round cheek, were wetted +with her tears. + +Alice was good as an angel. She forgave her husband, believed him +when he promised to leave off drinking, and never said a harsh word +to him. James kept his promise for a month or two, but fell again, +and then more hopelessly; for, after he had drunk a little, he +feared his wife would know what he had done, and felt so unhappy +that he drank more to drown his feelings; and, for the first time, +he was brought home to his wife dead drunk. + +Alice tended her husband as if he were only a sick man; she had him +put into a nice bed, she washed and mended his soiled and torn +clothes, she was near him to catch his first word when he recovered +his senses, she never reproached him, she tried, by love, to win him +back to sobriety and duty, she wept, she prayed for him. + +He suffered all that man can from shame; he could not look her in +the face; he had destroyed the charm and glory of life; he was +unable, or rather he thought he was, to conquer his enemy; and, +before six years were at an end, partly from broken and ruined +health, and partly from utter misery, he fell into a rapid decline, +and died. + +Alice loved her husband; and never was sick man nursed with more +loving, cheerful patience than was he. He wept over his sins; he +asked her, with every returning and every setting sun, to forgive +him and to pray God to pardon him. + +She was an angel of pity and mercy to him, to the end. When she +leaned over him to kiss him, he would pull her beautiful hair--for +I was still beautiful--over his face which he was ashamed to show +when he thought of his folly and wickedness. Many a time have I felt +his hot tears of contrition as he pressed me against his sunken +cheeks, and to his parched lips. + +After her husband's death, the vicar of the parish came to see +Alice, and did all he could to comfort and aid her. + +She found that her husband had died largely in debt; that, when all +the stock in his shop was sold, and the creditors paid, there would +be nothing left for herself and two children. + +She did not want to go back to her old father's house, and burden +him with care and expense, and she resolved to open a little school +for small children in the cottage in which she lived. + +She had one spare room which she could let to an old lady who wanted +just such a home as Alice could give her. + +With a strong and hopeful heart, did Alice dedicate herself to the +work before her, of supporting and educating her two orphan +children. Alice's strict honesty had made her give up to her +husband's creditors every thing she had, except the barest +necessaries; and, now that she wanted to commence her school, she +felt very much the want of a little cash to buy a few indispensable +things. + +The grocer and butcher had offered to supply her on credit, till her +first payment from her scholars and boarder should come in. Still a +little ready money was essential to her to begin. She would not +borrow it, and was one day thinking what she should do, when her +eye, wandering over a newspaper which the vicar had kindly lent her, +fell on an advertisement offering a high price for handsome hair +long and thick enough to make wigs. + +Alice heard the good curate say that he was going to London on +business in a day or two, and her determination was made in a +moment. + +I said that Alice had kept nothing that she could do without; she +had, however, kept the white muslin gown she wore when she was +married. She thought she could not give this up. "I shall never wear +a white muslin gown again," she said, as she ripped out one of the +breadths and made herself two or three plain caps of it. + +The next day she rose early before the children were awake, and, +standing before a very small looking glass which she had kept to +dress her hair, she looked at me curling all over her precious head, +and hanging down upon her shoulders. + +"He loved these locks," said she, "and, for his sake, I would keep +them; but they had better be devoted to the good of our children. +Some school books will be worth more than all these golden locks. I +am glad the children are asleep, for they love to play with my hair, +and it would grieve them to see me cut it off." + +The good Alice took her scissors, and cut off lock after lock, till +all were gone, save a few which she left around her forehead. Then +she put on her simple muslin cap and tied it with a muslin string +under her chin. + +Just then, her boy awoke. Alice had laid him down on his bed, and +the first sight the little fellow saw, when he awoke, was his +mother's hair which almost covered him up. + +"Why, Mother, how could you do so? How could you cut off your pretty +hair, and put on that ugly cap? What would father say? You said we +must do what we thought would please him. It would not please him to +have you cut off your pretty hair;" and the child burst into an +agony of tears. + +"Would it not please him that you should have a spelling book and a +slate to write on, William? With this hair I can buy them for you. I +have no other riches now." + +The poor boy still wept. The hair was more to him, at that time, +than all learning. He could not then have believed that the time +would come, when he would remember with gratitude his mother's +sacrifice for him and his little sister. + +Alice gathered the locks, took from a drawer her last bit of blue +ribbon, and tied them, saying, "This is the way he liked to see my +hair tied when I was at my father's cottage. I shall never tie it so +again." + +When the good vicar came to see Alice, as he did every day, she met +him with me all nicely done up in a paper in her hands, and asked +him if he would be so good as to take me to the hair dresser who had +advertised for hair, make the best bargain he could for her, and, +with the proceeds, get the few necessaries for commencing her small +school. The good man cheerfully promised to do so, took the parcel +from Alice, and carried it to his own house. + +And so I bade farewell to dear Alice, and her neat cottage, and her +sweet children. I was parted forever from that innocent head that +had cherished only good and pure thoughts. I was no longer to be +dressed by her dear hands. I was never again to shade and adorn her +lovely face, nor fall in ringlets around her sloping shoulders, nor +ever tremble again with the beatings of her gay and generous heart, +as I often had when she let me fall over her neck and shoulders. + +Nothing that ever had life in it could be insensible to such a +sorrow as this. How I envied the few locks she kept around her +precious forehead! How I wished that scissors had never been +invented! + +The good curate, faithful to his promise, took me to the hair +dresser in London, according to the direction in the advertisement; +and, before opening the paper which contained me, told him the story +of Alice, of her trials, and of her excellent character and conduct, +of her present need, and of her purpose to support and educate her +children by her own efforts. He told him that there never was such a +beautiful head of hair, and that he hoped he would be willing to +give something handsome for it. + +When the old clergyman opened the paper, and exhibited me to the +hair dresser, he took me out as fondly as if I had been a baby, and +shook me so as to make the ringlets curl again, but they would not. + +I felt the difference between the old man's hard fingers, and rough +shake, and the soft touch of the dear Alice. + +"Is it not beautiful?" said the old man. + +"It is well enough," said the dealer. "I shall have to make a man's +wig of it. The curls will all boil out." + +You may imagine my horror at these words; and, as for the poor +vicar, he seemed thunderstruck. + +"If I had any money to spare," said he, "I would buy this beautiful +hair myself, and have it framed with a glass over it, and hang it up +in my best parlor, with that blue ribbon that looks so like her; +it's as handsome as a picture; and then her dear children should +have it at my death." + +Whether it was that the hair dresser was afraid of losing me, or +that his heart was slightly touched with compassion for Alice and +her orphan children, I know not; but he offered the good curate a +sum for me which satisfied him. + +As the curate gave me up, he untied the blue ribbon, folded it up +nicely, and put it into his pocket; and I think he dropped a tear as +he did so. + +The wig maker examined me again when he was by himself. "A fine head +of hair it really is," said he. "It will make a good wig for a +youngish sort of a man; and the curls will make it work easier." + +Then he tied me up with a piece of twine, and tossed me into a large +drawer with great bunches of hair of all colors and fineness. + +Here I remained for I know not how long, without air or light, in +this disagreeable company. At last, one day we were all taken out, +and what we were made to endure I now shudder to think of. We were +boiled, we were pulled and mauled and greased; in short, I wonder we +had a whole hair left; but, after undergoing every thing you can +imagine, I found myself on a pole in the shape of a gentleman's wig, +covered with high-scented pomatum and powder. + +No one would have recognized me as the same beautiful hair that had +adorned the head of Alice. There were a number of poles with wigs on +them close by me, and I knew, as a matter of course, that I must +look just like them. They looked perfectly hateful to me, and I felt +disgusted with myself, because I knew I resembled them. + +It is now a puzzle to me how men could have ever been so foolish as +to make such a thing as I am, to put on their heads; these great +unmeaning curls, this ugly club, as they called it, hanging down +behind, and this horrid grease and powder too. + +Most of my life, of course, has been passed in this horrid shape in +which you now see me; but the remembrance of my early days clings to +me, and the love of freedom, and the sense of beauty which I +acquired when the wind played through my natural curls as they +covered the head of my dear Alice, have never forsaken me. It was +then only that I truly lived. But, forgive me--I have the weakness +of old age, and love to talk of youthful pleasures. + +One morning, in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, when I +was just twenty-eight years old, a gentleman of middle age came into +the hair dresser's shop, and asked to look at his wigs. I was shown +to him with some others. After examining us all, and trying on +several, he chose me, because, he said, he thought I was made of the +finest hair. + +"This," said he, "will visit the American colonies, and probably +remain there, for that will, I think, be my home." + +I rejoiced to hear this, for I was weary of my present life, and +longed for some variety. + +The good gentleman who purchased me seemed well satisfied with my +looks; but, when I saw myself in the glass, upon his long, narrow +face, with his great bottle nose, and cheeks like the sides of a +sulky, and all my pretty curls and my bright color gone, I wonder +that each hair did not stand on end with fright; most likely it +would have stood up, but for weight of pomatum and powder. + +Soon after my owner purchased me, he set sail for America. As I was +his new and best wig, I was packed carefully in a box, and knew +nothing till he arrived here, and was settled in his place of +residence. + +The first time I was taken out of my box was on Sunday, when I was +carefully adjusted on the Squire's head. I call him Squire, for I +soon found that Squire was the title every one gave him, as he was +the most important personage in the town in which he lived. I was as +well pleased as a wig could be with the appearance of things in and +around the house I was to inhabit. It was in a village about thirty +miles from Boston, and was like an English country gentleman's +house. A wide hall passed through the middle of it, with a grand +staircase. From the doors at either end of the hall ran rows of elm +trees. One led to the high road, the other up a gentle hill, on the +top of which was a pretty burying ground with a path through it +leading to a small church. + +The Squire had a black man whom he called his boy, and who was, in +fact, his slave, but whom he treated like a friend and brother. + +Some years after, when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, the +Squire called Cato to him, and said, "Cato, you are no longer my +slave; you are free." + +"But, massa, you will not sell me." + +"No, Cato, you are a freeman; I have no right to sell you. I don't +think I ever had any right to sell you; but now the law of the land +makes you free, and I am glad of it." + +"Then I can stay with you of my own free will, massa." + +"Yes, Cato, you can stay or go, just as you please." + +"Then, massa, I stay with you for love, and not cause I am your +slave. Now I your friend." And Cato never left the Squire till the +day of his death. But to return to my story. + +The Squire, as I said, put me on very carefully, and then as carefully +put over me his three-cornered hat, and took his gold-headed cane, and, +with Cato behind him, walked reverently up the hill to church. + +I was accustomed to the Episcopal church, where dear Alice went +every Sunday; but this was a Presbyterian church, and I had never +been in one before. + +As I said, had not my hairs lost their power of motion by what I had +endured from the scissors, and the vile process of making me into my +present shape, every one of them would have risen up against the +so-called music in this church; but my misfortunes and pomatum kept me +quiet. + +The sermon was at least two hours long, and many a hitch did the +Squire give me before it was over; that was the beginning of the +little trick, which you see I have now, of jerking up a little on +one side occasionally. + +The Squire had brought with him from England a complete set of +furniture for his house; and, after some time, the things reached +our abode which was about thirty miles from the sea coast. + +What all these fine things were for was soon explained. The Squire, +one day, put me into my nice box, putting on an old wig which he +wore on week days. I soon found that we were in some kind of a +vehicle, and, ere long, we arrived at a hotel in Boston. But we did +not stay there long. The Squire was going to be married, and, as I +was his best wig, I, of course, adorned his head at the wedding. + +Who would have believed that I was the same hair that covered the +head of dear Alice when she was a bride? Then curling like +hyacinths, and glowing like sunshine, now stiff, dull and dead; +looking, as I thought then, and think now, like nothing human or +divine. + +It was the second time the Squire had been married, so he was very +sedate in his happiness. He brought home his bride in a few days, +and there, at his excellent, delightful country house, all was soon +arranged in the most orderly way possible. + +The lady had a proper pole arranged for my accommodation, and made +the Squire a nice velvet cap to wear in the evenings, when they were +alone, and he wished to be relieved of my weight. + +The relations of the Squire and his wife often visited them, and +always in parties, English fashion, and remained some days; and then +what feasting and merriment there was! + +The house was surrounded by beautiful woods, and near by was a +lovely pond; and young and gay hearts were often there to wake the +echoes with their cheerful, laughing voices. Cato played on the +violin, and, when the evenings were chilly or rainy, the young +people danced till the small hours of the night. + +All this I witnessed, for the Squire was a gentleman of the old +school, was always in his best clothes for his company, and gave no +sign of weariness till they retired to bed. + +I should mention that the Squire was a justice of the peace. As he +lived in a remote and very quiet country town, he had not many +culprits brought before him. But occasionally he was called upon to +decide upon the proper punishment of some young rogue, and now and +then he had to marry a couple. + +At these times, I was always smoothed and new pomatumed with the +greatest care, then put on very carefully, and examined in the +looking glass two or three times, and readjusted over and over, till +I was as even as justice itself, before the Squire took his +gold-headed cane, and proceeded to consider the case. + +Once a boy was brought before him for stealing chestnuts. Now there +was such an abundance of chestnuts in the town that they were almost +thought common property. It happened, however, that the Squire had +some fine chestnuts himself, and he wished it to be considered an +unpardonable thing to steal chestnuts. So he condemned the boy's +father to pay a very good price for those his son had stolen, +leaving it to the man from whom the chestnuts had been taken to say +how large the quantity was. + +This unjust decision made the man and his son very angry. But my +master was the Squire; and, in those old times, we retained a great +deal of the English reverence for a country gentleman. + +The son of this man, however, had not much reverence for any thing, +and was determined to be revenged upon the Squire, as you will see. +I, however, was the greatest sufferer. It so happened that the pew +in which the boy sat at church was directly behind the Squire's. The +boy carried a piece of shoemaker's wax to meeting with him, and +when, as was usually the case, the Squire's queue came over the edge +of the pew, the young rascal took the opportunity, when no one was +looking, to stick the short queue fast with the wax to the side of +the pew. + +When the Squire stood up, his wig was nearly jerked off his head, +and would have been quite off, but for the boy's father who, seeing +the good gentleman's danger, caught hold of me, tore off the horrid +wax, and then pushed me back into my place. + +All the foolish children in the church giggled at my expense. The +simple Squire, thinking it was a nail or a hook, thanked the man who +had aided him in his distress, and advised him to take out the +troublesome hook. Cato, however, shook his black head and said, +"Guess naughty Pickaninny did de queue of Massa's wig. Neber mind, +Cato no make trouble; queue no feelins; I smood him up. Dem +chestnuts in his gizzard, spoze." + +Not long after this, the poor Squire lost his wife. Her health had +always been very delicate, and he had been a most devoted husband. + +The Squire was a good man, and tried to find consolation in the only +way it may be found, in the religious performance of duty. He became +the benefactor of the village. He was the friend of all who needed +his aid. + +Now, my friends, I must pass over the next ten years. What I have +just related to you of the Squire passed in the year seventeen +hundred and eighty. Now follow me to the year seventeen hundred and +ninety-two. + +The Americans, by their wisdom and bravery, had won their +independence. + +The Squire had done his part for his country by furnishing money, +and by making his large retired mansion an asylum for all his +friends who were in want of it. + +He was now seventy years old; and a haler, heartier, more serene old +man was never seen. His house was the summer rendezvous of all his +young and his old friends. + +Well do I remember one beautiful afternoon, just before sunset, the +Squire's going to the glass, and adjusting me nicely, and then going +to the door, and looking up through the avenue of elms which were +young trees when I was first carried there, and saying, "It is time +my niece and her husband and children were here." + +In a few minutes, a carriage appeared with a lady and her son and +daughter in it. That little girl, then five years old, was +afterwards the mother of our little friend asleep yonder. + +Never was there a more cordial welcome given to friends than the +good Squire gave them, and never was welcome more acceptable. + +There were other friends in the house, and such frolicking and +laughing and dancing on the lawn you seldom see nowadays. + +For many years, the nieces and nephews and their children and +children's children came in this way to refresh body and soul at +their good uncle's; till childhood blossomed into youth, and youth +began to strengthen into maturity, and maturity to fade away into +age. Years gathered around the old man's head, but his vigor +remained. + +You need not bounce in that way, my friend musket, and you, Messrs. +tea-kettle and pitcher, need not try to turn up the noses you have +lost, at my using these flowery expressions. Remember that, for more +than half a century, I dwelt upon a human head. It is natural that I +should have gained something from it, and that I should speak +somewhat as human beings speak. + +I hope you will pardon my talkativeness; and, even if you think me +prosy, let me go on after my own fashion, and finish my story in my +own way, for I am very old, and can speak in no other way. Remember, +too, I shall never speak to you again." + +"Go on, go on," cried the old coat, cloak, and baize gown. + +The rest made no objection, and so the wig continued. "I assure you +it was a very interesting thing to me to witness the changes that +were going on among the Squire's visitors. I saw that child's mother +come, first as a young lady, then as a bride, then as a mother; and +then she came, first with one, then with two, and then with three +children; and then, each year, I saw that these children had grown +bigger, and it was pleasant, as I sat so quietly upon the old +Squire's head, to see them jump out of the carriage each year, run +up to the old man to receive his welcome, and then scamper off into +the garden and fields like so many young animals; it was pleasant to +watch their gleeful faces at his hospitable board, and to hear their +merry shouts; it was pleasant, on Sunday, to see them, with their +father and mother, follow the old gentleman respectfully at a +distance, through the avenue of elms to church, with their small, +solemn faces, just now and then slightly nodding to a buttercup and +snatching it up; while he, with me and his three-cornered hat on his +head, and his gold-headed cane in his hand, and his light drab suit +of clothes, all his dress of the same cloth, and his shoes with gold +buckles, strode along, while Cato, dressed in some of the Squire's +old clothes, walked close behind him like his shadow. You would have +thought my master forty instead of eighty. + +Year after year I witnessed this, till, as I said, the children were +youths, and their parents no longer young. Then the good Squire +began to be, as I am now, a little garrulous; he loved to tell old +stories more than once. But who was there that would not, with +patient love, listen to them for many a time? + +It was affecting to observe how all his dates were from the year +fifty. No matter what story he told, or when it really did happen, +he always finished by adding, "and that happened in the year fifty." + +All his furniture and plate were purchased in the year fifty. It was +to him the beginning of the world. + +"Uncle," said one of his nieces one day to him, "let me try to dress +your wig; I think it wants it." + +"My dear, this wig was bought in the year fifty, and looks well now. +It has done me good service." + +"How beautiful this avenue of elms is!" + +"Yes, they were set out in the year fifty." + +"You have a good housekeeper, uncle." + +"Yes, my dear, she came to me in the year fifty." + +And so on with every thing in and about his house, and so it was +with every event which had made an abiding mark on his memory. + +There was but one thing about which the good Squire showed the real +childishness of his old age, and that was his fruit. He had bushels +and bushels of apples and pears and peaches, but he never thought +them fit to eat till they were at least half rotten. + +His nephews and nieces were of a decidedly different opinion, but +did not like to debate the subject with him; so they had recourse to +a little trick. I don't think it was quite right. The Squire was in +the habit every day of gathering the ripe fruit in baskets, and +putting it in what he called especially his room; it was a sort of +half dressing, half business room. Here it was that he kept the pole +upon which he placed me at night. These baskets of fruit, if the +good man had had his own way, would have remained there till they +were all rotten like the heaps of windfalls which was the fruit he +told the family, and the children especially, they might eat. + +Now it was the custom of two or three roguish boys and girls, who +visited him, to gather baskets of this rotten fruit, and when the +good man had gone to bed, to carry them into this room, and put them +in the place of the baskets of sound ripe fruit, which they took for +themselves and others to eat. + +In a day or two, the good Squire would look at his baskets, and, +finding the fruit decaying, would call it fit to eat, bring it into +the parlor, and then call in the children, and say to them, "Here, +boys and girls, here is nice ripe fruit for you; you can just cut +out the rotten with your penknives;" and then he would distribute it +among them. + +The little monkeys, of course, could scarce repress their giggles. + +I can make no apology for their cheat, except that, upon this point, +the good man was really childish; and, as he did not eat the fruit +himself, or sell it, or do any thing with it, but give to the pigs +what was not eaten in the family, no one was wronged by the trick. +It was, in fact, a piece of sport. + +As you see, I had the benefit of being present at the whole of the +fun; and I can hear now, it seems to me, as plainly as I did then, +the suppressed laughter of these roguish children when they came +into the room where I was, to exchange baskets of rotten for baskets +of sound fruit. + +In his eighty-seventh year, the old man ran a race with one of these +children, and contrived, by an artifice, to win it. She got before +him; when, fearing he would hurt himself, she stopped to look after +him; he came up to her; and then, just pushing her back a little, +got before her to the goal, which was very near them. How he did +shout, as though he were only twenty, and what a hitch he gave me on +the occasion! + +In his ninety-seventh year he died. It was a pity he did not live to +be a hundred. The night before he died, he went into his room to put +me on my accustomed pole. He did not see clearly, and let me fall on +the floor. + +"Ah!" said he, "the old head will fall too, before long. No matter; +it is time it should go. Here, Cato, help your old master." + +Cato was at hand, picked me up, put me in my place, and helped his +master to bed. + +I never saw the dear old man again. + +The next thing that I remember, is being put into a box and carried +I knew not whither. + +The first light I saw was the dim light of this garret. + +The mother of that little girl took me out; and as she put me on my +pole, which she had caused to be brought here also, "People may +laugh at me," said she, "but I will keep the dear old man's wig. It +seems to me a part of him, and is a memorial of the happy hours I +have passed under his hospitable roof." + +It is now one hundred and six years since I was born into this +world. For twenty-eight years I flourished on the beautiful head of +dear Alice. Ever since then, I have been only a wig. I am now +falling into utter decay. If any one were to shake me, I should fall +to pieces. I have, like many of you, my friends, since inhabiting +this garret, been abused and made fun of, by children. I was once +put upon the head of a donkey, while a boy with a fool's cap on his +head rode him, and took a love letter to a young man. I was also put +upon the head of a great monkey brought to the house for exhibition, +who took me off his head and threw me at the boys. Once, as you +know, I was made to play the mock judge on the head of a dog. Once +that little girl who sleeps there, used me to keep a litter of +kittens warm in, on a cold winter night. This nearly killed me, and +from that moment the children were forbidden to touch me. + +"I have now," concluded the wig, "only to ask your pardon, my +friends, for the impatience with which I have listened to your +stories when I thought them too long, and for the truly human vanity +and inconsistency which made me tell the longest story myself. But I +knew that no one waited for me. I shall certainly never speak more. +These are my last words. Farewell." + +Just at these words, it seemed to me as if the wig gradually +dissolved into a bright halo. Then suddenly it fell into golden +ringlets all so soft and graceful and beautiful; while I looked, +they seemed to shade such a lovely, innocent face, that I knew it +must be that of dear Alice looking like an angel in heaven. + +I awoke very happy. There was every thing in the old garret just as +I first described it, and all as quiet and still as if nothing had +happened." + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Talkative Wig, by Eliza Lee Follen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALKATIVE WIG *** + +***** This file should be named 4048.txt or 4048.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/4/4048/ + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. 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Pussy began to purr louder and louder, and at last I +fell again into the same dreamy sleep that I was in at first. + +Presently I heard the same confused sound which I heard before when +the old tenants of the garret began to speak. There seemed also to +be a slight motion among them, and a sort of mysterious appearance +came over the whole apartment, as if they were all living, though +very shadowy beings. Presently I heard the creak of the curling +tongs, and he uttered these words:-- + +"I think we have all been wronged by our friend the wig; he approved +of our all relating our own histories, and promised that, after we +had done so, he would give us his, frankly and truly, as we have +done; instead of that he, as well as the rest of us, fell asleep +when our friend spinning wheel related her story; and, when we all +waked up, he did not fulfil his promise. I move that he be requested +now to give us a faithful account of his whole life, till he was +consigned with us to this dark, gloomy old place. I probably have +been more intimately acquainted with him than any one present; for +once or twice I have assisted in smoothing, or rather frizzing, his +ruffled hairs, and making him fit for company; and, with your leave, +my friends, I urge him in your name to relate his history." A sort +of hum of approbation sounded through the long, dark old garret, and +then the wig spoke. + +"Friend Frizzle is right: I did agree to relate my adventures, but I +said I would wait till all had told their stories; now, here are two +of this brilliant company that have not said one word of themselves, +that comical coat and that old cloak; after they have related their +history I will relate mine. The wig hitched a little on his block, +and was silent. + +"I am ready," said the coat, "to tell all I know of myself, and I +shall not keep you long, I trust. My friend the baize gown and I had +the same origin on the back of a sheep, only I was of a nicer +texture, and had, from my earliest days, a more refined character; +and, of course, was used for higher purposes. Major Sword there may +know perhaps that I had as much to do with making the major of +Cadets as he had, only I did not make people run when they looked at +me, as he says he did. + +I was originally of the most delicate white, and I was made into one +of the very first coats that ever appeared on the parade as one of +the Governor's guards. I think I did more to make the major than my +Lord Sword did. Think of a major without a coat! He would not be a +major, for a moment. He would be hooted at. Now, even were he +without a sword, and had me, such as I once was, on his back, he +would still be known as a major of the Cadets." + +"Self-glorification! Come to your story," cried the musket, with a +bounce. + +"I will," said the coat. "I was, as I have told you, the major's +military coat, admired by all who looked at me; and I appeared often +on parade days till he gave up his office, and left this country, +when I was left hanging up in his dressing room, and all my glory +was gone. + +As the major's boys grew bigger, they would often beg their mother +to allow them to put me on. The rogues were so short then that I +trailed on the ground. I was even so far abused as to be worn by +girls. This tried my feelings sorely, but I was forced to submit. +Once I was so far disgraced as to be worn by one of the girls while +she danced with her brother who was dressed like a monkey, with a +tail over a yard long; and this was not all, she pulled the monkey's +tail too hard, it came off, and then the monkey boy seized the tail +and beat me with it, meaning to beat his sister, but I got the worst +of it. So I lived to be made fun of, and lived for nothing else. + +At last, the major's wife, our dear mistress, took me one day into +her gentle hands, and after examining me carefully and making up her +mind to the act, deliberately took her scissors, ripped me up into +pieces, and sent me to the dyer's, to be colored brown. This was too +horrid--I was soused into the vilest mixture you can imagine, and +suffered every thing abominable, such as being stretched within an +inch of my life, and then almost burned to death. At last, I came +out with the color you now see me, not a handsome brown, but a real +sickish rhubarb color. My dear mistress laughed when she looked at +me. "This is a dose," said she, "but it will do for an every day +coat for Jonathan, and I can make it myself, with Keziah Vose's aid; +so I will not grieve about it. So Keziah was sent for and set to +work. + +Now Jonathan was a white-haired, chubby boy, and this was his first +coat. Keziah went by her eye altogether. She took no measures except +for the sleeves, and these she said she would make large and long, +to allow for Jonathan's growing. She made me so broad behind that +one brass button could not see the other, although they were, as you +see, almost as large as a small plate; the skirts came down so as to +hide the calves of his legs, and were so full as nearly to meet +before. My sleeves had a regular slouch. There was no hollow in the +back, and I looked as if I was made for one of the boys' snow men, +not for a human being. + +When I was finished and put on for the first time, all the children +and their mother were present, as it happened. My droll looks and +rhubarb color, the comical expression of Jonathan's face,--for he +was a great rogue,--and his sun-bleached hair, half hidden by my +high, stiff collar, set them all into a gale of laughter. He took +hold of my full skirts, one on each side, and began to dance; and +even his mother and Keziah laughed too. Nothing was to be done. A +few times, the mother of Jonathan tried to induce him to wear me at +home, for she could not afford, she said, to lose all I had cost +her; but it was all in vain--giggle, giggle, went all the children +when they saw me, and I had to be hung up, as you see me now. +Whenever they wanted a comical dress in any of their plays, I was +brought out, and that little girl asleep there, and her brothers +still amuse themselves with my comical looks. Alas! I am of no other +use in this world. + +The young people used to amuse themselves by acting little plays, or +some other nonsense; and when they wanted to make a very ridiculous +figure, I noticed they came for me. I always observed that whoever +had me on talked through his nose, with an ugly drawl, and used +vulgar words and expressions, such as "Now you don't! Do tell! +Sartin true!" + +Once they put me on a dancing bear. This was insulting. I don't like +to think of it. I try to forget it. + +In short, every one laughs when I am present, for some reason or +other; and I suppose I have been kept on account of the merriment I +have afforded the family. After all, my friends, I am not sure that +he who adds to the innocent gayety of people is not as valuable a +person as one who has more dignity, and who never made any one laugh +in his life. + +I have done, my friends--the old cloak is a more serious, dignified +person than I, and will now, I trust, give us her history." + +The old cloak began to speak in a different tone from that of the +coat. I cannot say the tone was gloomy, though it was very serious. +It was a kindly, affectionate tone, that made you not unhappy, but +thoughtful. "I agree," said she, "with my neighbor who has just +spoken, that no one deserves better of society than he who promotes +its innocent merriment. No bad person can know what true gayety of +heart is. Goodness and cheerfulness are like substance and shadow; +where the one is, the other will always follow. + +I was made of German wool; and, in my country, the people all laugh +and sing. They keep still a saying of old Martin Luther, which runs, +if I remember rightly,-- + +"Wo man singt, leg' ich mich freilich nieder. Bose Menschen haben +keine Lieder." + +"Keep to plain English, you Hushan!" shouted the musket with a kick. + +"I am sorry to hurt your feelings, my old soldier," said the good +natured cloak. "I think, however, it is rather hard of you to keep +the name of Hessian as a term of reproach forever, just because a +few poor miserable fellows once came over here to fight you. Was it +not enough to have treated them as you say you did in the Jerseys? +For the benefit of you and those less prejudiced, I will translate +the couplet:-- + +"Where I singing hear, + I lay me, free from fear. + Men intent on wrong + Never have a song." + + +I was a singer myself once during the short time when I was +connected with one of dame spinning wheel's relatives. I am not even +a laugher now. Still I am contented and cheerful, and I remember +past trials without any bitterness. I went through all processes of +carding, spinning, weaving, dyeing, stretching, dressing, &c., and +was at last placed in a shop for sale. A beautiful young girl +purchased me for her bridal pelisse. Never did a happier heart beat +than did hers on the Sunday after she was married, when she wore me +to the church, holding by her husband's arm. I could not but partake +of the pleasure which she received from the gentle pressure of his +arm when she put hers within his, saying, "I am glad, dear, you like +my pelisse so much." + +O, how happy we all were! How proud my mistress was of me! How proud +I was of her! I hate to pass hastily over these happy days, but I +suppose the history of them would not be very interesting to any of +my hearers; for one day was very much like another. Never did any +garment cover a more innocent, joyful heart than that of my +mistress. + +I lasted well for some years, but my sleeves, at last, became +threadbare; soon after, there were actual holes in them, and holes +also in my waist; I was, I must confess, a shabby-looking pelisse. + +My dear mistress took me into her hands one day, and, after +examining me all over, said, with a sigh, "I cannot wear it any +longer; I must give it up." At last, her expression brightened and +she added, "I can give it to cousin Jane; I am very tall, and she is +very short. The skirt is good, and she can make a cloak of it; and +so my precious pelisse will still be where I can see it." + +Forthwith I was sent to cousin Jane, with a very pretty note +explaining to her the reasons why her cousin took the liberty of +offering her the old pelisse. Cousin Jane wanted a cloak, and could +not afford to buy one; so I was carefully ripped up and turned, and +made into a very respectable garment. + +Cousin Jane was a dressmaker; and, in her service, I learned +something of what dressmakers have to endure. She had not been long +engaged in her trade; and, at first, she would put me on in the +morning with a brisk, vigorous manner, but in the evening, when she +returned home, how differently she took me up! how differently she +threw me over her weary shoulders! + +Soon she ceased to put me on in the morning in the same strong, +elastic manner, but took me up languidly, and as if she dreaded the +day, and, when she went into the air, wrapped me very closely about +her, just as if I was her only comfort, and pressed me to her heart, +as if in hopes it would ache less. + +Poor dear cousin Jane, my heart aches to think of her. Day after +day, from morning till night, and often till the next day began, she +toiled and toiled, stooping over her work, sewing, sewing, hour +after hour, and day after day, stooping all the time, till her eyes +lost their brightness, her step all its elasticity, till her +shoulders grew round, and her health failed. + +O, had those for whom she labored, for her small day's wages, but +observed how the lamp of life was gradually going out, they would +not have allowed her so to work without any respite; they would have +made her take better care of her own health; they would have sent +her home early; they would not have allowed her to work thirteen or +fourteen hours a day in their service. + +There was one family in which she worked where the master and +mistress insisted that at one o'clock Jane should lay aside her +work, and walk till two, when they dined. Then they insisted upon +her dining at their own table, and tried to make her meal a social +and pleasant one. + +O, these were white days for poor Jane. Could I not tell when she +was going to work in this family by the way she threw me over her +shoulders? Did I not feel her gentle heart beating with unwonted +warmth as she came home from this family before eight o'clock, +accompanied by the truly good man of the house or some trusty +person? When she hung me up in her small bed room, did I not notice +her grateful, happy smile? She felt that she was recognized by these +good people as a sister and friend, and that the words which we hear +at church and read in the Bible, "All men are brethren," were not +mere words with them. + +These evenings she would make her small fire, and sometimes indulge +herself in reading a little while; she would go to bed early, and +did not look so pale in the morning. + +Had all the customers of cousin Jane been as kind and considerate as +these good people were, she might have lived; and I should, perhaps, +have continued in her possession; but life was too hard for her,-- +she struggled with it for many years, and then her sweet spirit +turned wearily away from it; she grew weaker and weaker, the color +grew brighter and brighter on her cheek, and the light in her eye; +she looked like a spirit; and, ere long, she was one. + +My first owner came, as soon as she heard how ill Jane was, and took +her home to this house in the country. Here our good mistress nursed +her poor cousin, and made the last days as happy as she could; but +Jane was weary of this life, and longed for a better one. She passed +away as gently and sweetly as a summer evening cloud or a dying +flower. + +Our mistress said to her husband, "All Jane's clothes, except this +dear cloak, I have given to the poor. This I must keep myself; for +it was one of my wedding garments, and dear Jane has made it all the +dearer to me. I shall keep it to lend to friends who are caught here +in the rain; it shall be called the friend's cloak, and shall always +be kept in the closet in the hall, close at hand." + +Now, I suppose every one knows of how much use such a cloak is in a +family. Never was a cloak more employed than I, and for all sorts of +things. I was used to play dumb orator. I was at every one's +service. I don't know how they ever did without me. + +Don't be astonished that I did not wear out; my lining was strong, +and I tell you an old cloak has a charmed life; you cannot wear it +out; like charity, it suffereth long and is kind. + +As my dear mistress's children grew up, I was treated very much as +you all have been; that is to say, with no respect at all. What a +different life was mine from that which I led with dear, gentle +cousin Jane. Peace be with her sweet spirit! + +One prank which the boys played some years after Jane's death, I +must relate, and then I have done. The eldest, whose name was +Willie, took me, the evening before thanksgiving day, and, having +dressed himself up in some of the cook's dirty old clothes, and hung +a basket on his arm, put me over his shoulders, and I went begging +of all the neighbors for something to keep thanksgiving with. He +disguised his voice by putting cotton wool in his mouth, and I +wonder myself how I came to know him. Two or three boys of his +acquaintance went with him, all dressed as beggars; and a grand +frolic they had. + +They went to one house where a man lived that made great pretensions +to religion and goodness, but who the boys strongly suspected was +not very compassionate to the poor. + +"Please," said Willie, "give us a little flour and raisins for our +mother to make a thanksgiving pudding with to-morrow." His answer +was a slam of the door in his face. + +"Let us go to Granny Horton's," said one of the boys; "she has not +gone to bed yet." + +"O," said Willie, "you know she has nothing but what mother sends +her, or some of the neighbors. It would be a shame. I carried her a +pair of chickens this morning, and some flour and raisins; and it is +a shame to beg of her, she is so kind. But won't it be funny if she +gives us something, when Squire Marsh would not; at any rate, she'll +not slam the door in our faces. Come, let's go quickly, before she +puts out her little light and goes to bed. I bet she'll give us one +of her chickens. But let us take whatever she gives us, just for the +fun, and for fear we should be found out." + +Willie was to be the spokesman. He felt rather queerly at first; but +the fun of the thing was too tempting, so he agreed to speak. He was +dressed as a girl, and wrapped me closely about him, as if he was +very cold. He had on an old straw bonnet, and his face was painted, +so that she could not recognize him, he knew. + +They knocked at Granny Horton's door, and she, in a kind, gentle +voice, replied, "Come in!" Willie, pretending to be a girl, told how +she and her brother and sister had come from the farther part of the +town, where they lived in the woods with a mother who was very old, +and had hardly any thing to eat; and how they wanted something good +to carry to her for thanksgiving day--a little flour, or a chicken, +or any thing; that it was too hard for his dear mother to have +nothing but beans on that day; that beans were what they lived on +commonly. + +He looked so mournful, and spoke in such a mournful tone that the +dear old woman, after thinking one moment, said to him, "I have two +chickens, a quart of flour, and two pounds of raisins, sent to me by +a good lady this morning, and brought to me by a real good little +boy called Willie. I can't ask their leave, but I guess they would +not scold me for giving your mother half of what he brought me; so +you shall have it, dear. 'It's more blessed to give than to +receive.' 'The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be His +name.'" + +While she was saying over these blessed words, she was busy dividing +the flour and the raisins, and putting them and the chicken into the +basket which Willie gave her. + +They all thanked the old woman very kindly, and went off with her +flour and chicken. + +"What shall we do with it all?" said they, as soon as they were out +of the house. + +"Let us," said Willie, "beg all we can every where, and get our +basket full, and carry it back to her, and, when she is asleep, get +into her house again, and put it on her hearth. I know how to open +the window on the outside when she thinks it fast." + +This was a good joke for the boys; so they went from house to house, +and, except at the squire's and one other place, got something from +every one, till, at last, their basket was full. Then they went +home, and got a peck of apples from their mother. + +Willie then led the way to Granny Horton's again. They looked in at +the window, and, by the light of the few embers still burning, saw +the good woman asleep in her great, old-fashioned chair, with her +spectacles on, and by her side a little stand on which lay her Bible +open at the place where she had been reading. + +"I can get in," said Willie, "and put the basket down by her side +before she wakes." + +Accordingly, he went to a little window in the back part of the +house, climbed in, came softly into the room where she was, and set +the baskets, all running over with good things, down on the hearth. +Willie had hardly got back to the window, when the good woman waked +up; and there, directly before her eyes, stood the baskets. She took +them up, and looked at them for some minutes before she took any +thing out. At last, she began to examine their contents. When she +came to her chicken and flour and raisins, in the very papers in +which she had wrapped them; she looked up and clasped her hands with +such astonishment, with such a look of wonder and gratitude, that +the boys, in their glee, laughed outright, and so loud that she +heard them. + +She ran to the window, but they were gone; and she never knew how it +was that her chicken and flour brought her back seven fold. + +When next the cook went to see her, with me on,--I was every body's +cloak,--the old lady told her the whole story of finding the chicken +and flour, and so many other good things with them. The secret was +kept; and it was Granny Horton's firm faith that it was the wings of +angels she heard when she went to the window. Indeed she thought she +had seen the wings, for as Willie turned to run, he forgot to hold +me tight, and the wind blew me up so as to hide him entirely, and +she took me for great dark wings. + +I fear you may be weary of my story. I have much more that I could +relate, but I have already been too long. + +I am, as you see, ragged and worn, but the dear family have an +affection for me still, as well as for all the rest of us; and so I +am allowed to remain here in this most respectable company. I trust +the wig will now give us his history for which we have waited so +long." + +"There is time enough before eight o'clock for the story of the +wig," said Frank, "if you can remember it, Mother. He ought to tell +his story now, as he promised." + +"As the wig began to speak," said their mother, "he gave a slight +hitch on one side, just as if some one pushed him up a little, and +then, after a short pause, began thus: "You will be astonished, +perhaps, to know that it is more than a hundred years since I first +saw the light. None of you have lived so long, or seen as much as I +have. I cannot tell all I have seen or known. It would take too +long, and weary you too much. I can only give a slight sketch of my +long life. + +In the year seventeen hundred and fifty, the baby head upon which I +grew came into this strange world in which we live. O, how happy was +the mother who saw me for the first time! How full was her joy when +she stroked the small head of her little girl, and exclaimed, "How +beautiful and soft her hair is! softer than velvet or satin." Even +then, every one said, "What a beautiful head of hair! What a lovely +baby!" + +The little girl whose head I adorned was the daughter of a poor +vicar who lived with his wife in an obscure country town in England. + +Alice was their fifth child, but their only daughter. She was very +beautiful, and, I may say it surely without vanity now, I was her +greatest ornament. I was of a beautiful auburn color, and fell in +thick clusters all over her happy, gentle head, and shaded her +laughter-loving face. After a day of hard work, how fond her mother +was of taking her little pet in her lap, and twisting up every curl +in nice order under her white linen night-cap, before putting her to +bed! Her father, too, would wind my ringlets around his great +fingers, made hard and rough with toil in the garden, and would kiss +every one of them, and pray God to bless the young head on which +they grew. + +As the dear head grew larger, I grew larger and thicker. Every one +who saw me noticed me. One would say, "It looks like a pot of +hyacinths"; another, "It has caught the sunshine and kept it." + +What a pleasant life I led! When Alice grew a large girl, she became +something of a romp, and one of her favorite amusements was to go to +the top of a hill near her father's house, when there was a high +wind, and let it blow through her curls, and sing and shout and +dance from the fulness of her joy. When she came home, she would say +"Mother, the wind has been combing my hair." + +O the horrid combing that I had to endure every morning! One must be +a head of curly hair to know how terrible is a comb. + +If you will not think me too long, I must talk a little more about +the dear Alice, and tell you what I witnessed till I was separated +from her." + +"Go ahead," said the old musket. + +"I must tell you how her sweetness and goodness once saved the house +from robbery. It was the custom of her father and mother, on Sunday, +to lock up the house, while they went to church. A pot of pork and +beans, and a pudding of Indian meal was put in the oven to bake for +their dinner. + +One Sunday, as Alice had a heavy cold, they left her at home. She +was then fourteen years old, and felt herself quite equal to taking +charge of the house. + +It was generally known that the curate's house was locked up on +Sunday; and a poor, foolish, as well as wicked fellow, determined to +take that opportunity to help himself to the good curate's silver, +or any other valuable, he could find in the house. It happened that +the man took the Sunday when Alice was left at home for his wicked +purpose. + +When he came to the door which he intended to break open, he was +admitted by Alice, who saw him coming. She asked him to come in and +sit down, then inquired if he had travelled far, and set before him +some bread and butter and cold water. + +"My father is a minister," she said, "and always asks travellers to +stay. We have some dinner in the oven, and we shall all of us like +to have you stay and dine. You look pale and tired; you had better +stay." + +These words Alice said with such a sweet, confiding earnestness, +that the wicked purpose died away from the heart of the intended +thief. He felt as if he was in the presence of an angel. He looked +at her in wonder. All the evil in him seemed to depart. + +"You are very good," he said. "Do you take care of the house all +alone by yourself?" + +"O yes," she replied; "it does not take much trouble. There is no +one to harm us. Would you like a book to read till papa and mamma +come home; here is my Testament; or would you like I should read to +you?" + +"Read to me," said the man. + +As Alice read from the history of Jesus, the tears ran down the +robber's cheeks; he said nothing. + +When the curate came home, he repeated Alice's invitation to dine. +The man accepted it. After dinner, when he thanked Alice and her +father for their kindness to him, he said to the curate, "Your +daughter is an angel, and has saved me from sin. I go away a better +man than I came." + +He then confessed the evil intentions with which he had entered the +house, told how Alice's trusting, gentle kindness had disarmed him, +and promised the curate that he would henceforward be a better man. + +I do not mean to say that Alice never did any wrong thing. She was, +however, so sorry for a fault, she repented so soon, and then did +all she could to repair it, that no one could help forgiving her. +She had a trick of squinting now and then. Her mother thought that +my curls perplexed the bright eyes under them; and, to prevent the +evil, drew up all the pretty locks in a bunch, tied them together, +and said, "Now, Alice, your hair is all out of the way, and you will +not squint." + +Alice was annoyed by this; she was a little vain of my beauty, and +the disregard of her looks, which she thought these words indicated, +fretted her. + +Her father saw this, and, to make the tying less disagreeable, said +to her, one day, "Alice, I see you don't like to have your hair tied +up; you don't think it reasonable. Come now, bear it patiently for a +month; and, at the end of that time, I will give you the little work +box I am ornamenting with straw." + +Alice agreed, and promised to be patient, and to keep her hair tied +up. + +During the month, it happened that Alice was invited to a little +party of girls at her aunt's. + +Alice hoped that her father and mother would absolve her from the +promise, that afternoon; but no, her mother only tied up her hair +with a new ribbon for the occasion. I, with all my beautiful curls, +was drawn away from her dear face as far as possible. Alice found +this hard to bear. + +As she was on the way to the party, she could hardly keep from +crying. + +"What is the matter?" said her father. + +"Nothing, father," said Alice, "only a little headache; mother has +tied my hair too tight." + +"Loosen it," said her father. + +Alice did loosen it, so that the string was just ready to come off. + +When she arrived at her aunt's, where her father left her, I was +just escaping from my hateful confinement, and her aunt took hold of +the hair as the string fell on the floor. + +"Shall I tie it on again, Alice, or shall your pretty hair go just +so? I don't see the use of tying it, but, if you really wish it, my +dear, just step up stairs, and Jane will do it for you very nicely. +Perhaps your mother would choose it to be tied; she is very +particular. It is a pity to confine such beautiful curls, but, if it +must be so, we can't help it. Will you go up stairs? Here is the +string; it dropped on the floor." + +"No," said Alice, "it is of no consequence;" and she put the string +into her pocket. + +Again I fell upon her beautiful forehead, and kissed her rosy +cheeks; and every one admired my beauty. + +Alice tried to forget that she was breaking her promise, and enjoyed +herself pretty well. + +When she went home, her mother said, "Why, Alice, your hair is all +over your face; how comes that?" + +"The string was nearly off when I went in, and then it fell on the +floor, and aunt said I looked better without it. Here is the string, +which she picked up." + +"I should have thought your aunt would have let you go up to Jane, +and have it tied properly; you should have asked her leave." + +"I suppose," said the father, "that Alice felt too shy. It is no +matter for one day. Alice, I dare say, kept her promise as well as +she could; and, next week, she shall have her box; a right pretty +one it is." + +Alice kissed her father and mother, and went to bed; but there was a +little cloud between her and the all-pure Being to whom she prayed +that night, and her precious tears wetted my locks, ere she went to +sleep. + +Alice felt that she had not been true to her promise, and her +parents' entire trust was the most severe reproach. Still she could +not quite make up her mind to say so; and she tried not to think so. +She had set her heart upon the little work box made and ornamented +by her father whom she loved dearly. One day after another passed +away, and every day it became harder to confess her fault. How often +I heard her sigh during these days! Nothing makes a perfectly light +heart but entire uprightness. + +One day, her father called her to him, and said, "Come, Alice, and +tell me which color I shall use to ornament the border of your box-- +blue or green?" + +"Just which you please, Father." + +"But you know it is for you, and I want to know what you like best." + +"If it should ever be mine, Father, I like blue best." + +"Blue it shall be," said her father. "It will be finished to-morrow, +and then your month for keeping your hair tied will end. I think +your eyes are better, and you have learned also that you can keep a +promise. You are my good child." + +Alice could not speak. She ran out of doors into her garden where +her father had made her a little arbor, and there, all alone, she +struggled with herself, till courage and truth prevailed. Then she +went back into her father's study where she found him still at work +on her box. + +"Almost done, Alice," said he; "see how pretty it is." "It must not +be mine, Father," said Alice, very quietly, for she was determined +to command herself. "I have not kept my promise, Father. I have +deceived you and mother. I don't deserve the box. Give it to my +cousin." Then she told her father the whole story, just as it was. +As she went on, she grew braver, and felt happier; so that she was +able to look up into her father's face, and say, very calmly, "I +could not take any pleasure in your pretty box, for I know I do not +deserve it. Please, dear Father, to tell Mother all about it, and +put away the box, if you choose not to give it to some one else. It +is very pretty, but it is not to be my box." + +The tears began to come in her eyes, and she turned to go out of the +room. Her father stopped her. "Come here, my Child," he said. "You +did wrong, but you have done all you could to repair your fault. You +will never again, I think, be guilty of falsehood. At the end of +another month, if you feel sure of yourself, come to me for your +box." + +"No, Father, that would seem like being paid for speaking the truth. +I should never ask for the box." + +"Would you rather I should give it to your cousin?" + +"If you please, I should;" and then the tears ran fast down her +cheeks. "You know my cousin Edith has very few pretty things. I +should like her to have it." + +"Take it, Alice, and give it to her yourself." + +"As your present, Father, not as mine. You know it is not, and +cannot be mine. I have been so unhappy at my untruth, that I think I +shall never commit such a fault again." + +Alice never did again, in the slightest thing, depart from the +strictest truth and uprightness, in action as well as in word. It +was common for her friends to say when there was a question about +any thing that had occurred, "We will ask Alice. She always tells +the exact truth." + +At last, Alice was a woman; and I, of course, led a more sober life, +as she became more serious. I grew so long and thick that, when she +took out her comb, and shook her head slightly, I fell in curls all +around her neck and shoulders, like a golden veil, and you could but +just see her laughing blue eyes, and white teeth through me. + +You may readily guess that the pretty Alice was beloved by all who +knew her; and, ere long, the son of the village apothecary won her +heart. He was a good-hearted fellow, but never fitted himself to be +of much use in the world. He took Alice to a distant village, where, +with his father's assistance, he set up as an apothecary, on rather +a small scale, of course; but Alice was used to simple fare and to +helping herself. + +All would have been well with them but for one thing--the husband +became a drunkard; not immediately--his love for his wife kept him +sober for some time. Nothing was more beautiful than the way they +lived for a year or two; but the habit of drinking a little, a habit +which he had formed in his father's shop, and which he intended to +cure, returned. The wretched man had not strength to resist it. + +He became fretful, and Alice, for the first time in her life, became +unhappy. She had never before heard any but the voice of kindness; +and now, from him she loved best in the world she received sometimes +sharp and disagreeable words. He was very sorry afterwards, and all +would seem well again, but he did not really reform, and, many a +time, my locks, falling over her innocent round cheek, were wetted +with her tears. + +Alice was good as an angel. She forgave her husband, believed him +when he promised to leave off drinking, and never said a harsh word +to him. James kept his promise for a month or two, but fell again, +and then more hopelessly; for, after he had drunk a little, he +feared his wife would know what he had done, and felt so unhappy +that he drank more to drown his feelings; and, for the first time, +he was brought home to his wife dead drunk. + +Alice tended her husband as if he were only a sick man; she had him +put into a nice bed, she washed and mended his soiled and torn +clothes, she was near him to catch his first word when he recovered +his senses, she never reproached him, she tried, by love, to win him +back to sobriety and duty, she wept, she prayed for him. + +He suffered all that man can from shame; he could not look her in +the face; he had destroyed the charm and glory of life; he was +unable, or rather he thought he was, to conquer his enemy; and, +before six years were at an end, partly from broken and ruined +health, and partly from utter misery, he fell into a rapid decline, +and died. + +Alice loved her husband; and never was sick man nursed with more +loving, cheerful patience than was he. He wept over his sins; he +asked her, with every returning and every setting sun, to forgive +him and to pray God to pardon him. + +She was an angel of pity and mercy to him, to the end. When she +leaned over him to kiss him, he would pull her beautiful hair--for +I was still beautiful--over his face which he was ashamed to show +when he thought of his folly and wickedness. Many a time have I felt +his hot tears of contrition as he pressed me against his sunken +cheeks, and to his parched lips. + +After her husband's death, the vicar of the parish came to see +Alice, and did all he could to comfort and aid her. + +She found that her husband had died largely in debt; that, when all +the stock in his shop was sold, and the creditors paid, there would +be nothing left for herself and two children. + +She did not want to go back to her old father's house, and burden +him with care and expense, and she resolved to open a little school +for small children in the cottage in which she lived. + +She had one spare room which she could let to an old lady who wanted +just such a home as Alice could give her. + +With a strong and hopeful heart, did Alice dedicate herself to the +work before her, of supporting and educating her two orphan +children. Alice's strict honesty had made her give up to her +husband's creditors every thing she had, except the barest +necessaries; and, now that she wanted to commence her school, she +felt very much the want of a little cash to buy a few indispensable +things. + +The grocer and butcher had offered to supply her on credit, till her +first payment from her scholars and boarder should come in. Still a +little ready money was essential to her to begin. She would not +borrow it, and was one day thinking what she should do, when her +eye, wandering over a newspaper which the vicar had kindly lent her, +fell on an advertisement offering a high price for handsome hair +long and thick enough to make wigs. + +Alice heard the good curate say that he was going to London on +business in a day or two, and her determination was made in a +moment. + +I said that Alice had kept nothing that she could do without; she +had, however, kept the white muslin gown she wore when she was +married. She thought she could not give this up. "I shall never wear +a white muslin gown again," she said, as she ripped out one of the +breadths and made herself two or three plain caps of it. + +The next day she rose early before the children were awake, and, +standing before a very small looking glass which she had kept to +dress her hair, she looked at me curling all over her precious head, +and hanging down upon her shoulders. + +"He loved these locks," said she, "and, for his sake, I would keep +them; but they had better be devoted to the good of our children. +Some school books will be worth more than all these golden locks. I +am glad the children are asleep, for they love to play with my hair, +and it would grieve them to see me cut it off." + +The good Alice took her scissors, and cut off lock after lock, till +all were gone, save a few which she left around her forehead. Then +she put on her simple muslin cap and tied it with a muslin string +under her chin. + +Just then, her boy awoke. Alice had laid him down on his bed, and +the first sight the little fellow saw, when he awoke, was his +mother's hair which almost covered him up. + +"Why, Mother, how could you do so? How could you cut off your pretty +hair, and put on that ugly cap? What would father say? You said we +must do what we thought would please him. It would not please him to +have you cut off your pretty hair;" and the child burst into an +agony of tears. + +"Would it not please him that you should have a spelling book and a +slate to write on, William? With this hair I can buy them for you. I +have no other riches now." + +The poor boy still wept. The hair was more to him, at that time, +than all learning. He could not then have believed that the time +would come, when he would remember with gratitude his mother's +sacrifice for him and his little sister. + +Alice gathered the locks, took from a drawer her last bit of blue +ribbon, and tied them, saying, "This is the way he liked to see my +hair tied when I was at my father's cottage. I shall never tie it so +again." + +When the good vicar came to see Alice, as he did every day, she met +him with me all nicely done up in a paper in her hands, and asked +him if he would be so good as to take me to the hair dresser who had +advertised for hair, make the best bargain he could for her, and, +with the proceeds, get the few necessaries for commencing her small +school. The good man cheerfully promised to do so, took the parcel +from Alice, and carried it to his own house. + +And so I bade farewell to dear Alice, and her neat cottage, and her +sweet children. I was parted forever from that innocent head that +had cherished only good and pure thoughts. I was no longer to be +dressed by her dear hands. I was never again to shade and adorn her +lovely face, nor fall in ringlets around her sloping shoulders, nor +ever tremble again with the beatings of her gay and generous heart, +as I often had when she let me fall over her neck and shoulders. + +Nothing that ever had life in it could be insensible to such a +sorrow as this. How I envied the few locks she kept around her +precious forehead! How I wished that scissors had never been +invented! + +The good curate, faithful to his promise, took me to the hair +dresser in London, according to the direction in the advertisement; +and, before opening the paper which contained me, told him the story +of Alice, of her trials, and of her excellent character and conduct, +of her present need, and of her purpose to support and educate her +children by her own efforts. He told him that there never was such a +beautiful head of hair, and that he hoped he would be willing to +give something handsome for it. + +When the old clergyman opened the paper, and exhibited me to the +hair dresser, he took me out as fondly as if I had been a baby, and +shook me so as to make the ringlets curl again, but they would not. + +I felt the difference between the old man's hard fingers, and rough +shake, and the soft touch of the dear Alice. + +"Is it not beautiful?" said the old man. + +"It is well enough," said the dealer. "I shall have to make a man's +wig of it. The curls will all boil out." + +You may imagine my horror at these words; and, as for the poor +vicar, he seemed thunderstruck. + +"If I had any money to spare," said he, "I would buy this beautiful +hair myself, and have it framed with a glass over it, and hang it up +in my best parlor, with that blue ribbon that looks so like her; +it's as handsome as a picture; and then her dear children should +have it at my death." + +Whether it was that the hair dresser was afraid of losing me, or +that his heart was slightly touched with compassion for Alice and +her orphan children, I know not; but he offered the good curate a +sum for me which satisfied him. + +As the curate gave me up, he untied the blue ribbon, folded it up +nicely, and put it into his pocket; and I think he dropped a tear as +he did so. + +The wig maker examined me again when he was by himself. "A fine head +of hair it really is," said he. "It will make a good wig for a +youngish sort of a man; and the curls will make it work easier." + +Then he tied me up with a piece of twine, and tossed me into a large +drawer with great bunches of hair of all colors and fineness. + +Here I remained for I know not how long, without air or light, in +this disagreeable company. At last, one day we were all taken out, +and what we were made to endure I now shudder to think of. We were +boiled, we were pulled and mauled and greased; in short, I wonder we +had a whole hair left; but, after undergoing every thing you can +imagine, I found myself on a pole in the shape of a gentleman's wig, +covered with high-scented pomatum and powder. + +No one would have recognized me as the same beautiful hair that had +adorned the head of Alice. There were a number of poles with wigs on +them close by me, and I knew, as a matter of course, that I must +look just like them. They looked perfectly hateful to me, and I felt +disgusted with myself, because I knew I resembled them. + +It is now a puzzle to me how men could have ever been so foolish as +to make such a thing as I am, to put on their heads; these great +unmeaning curls, this ugly club, as they called it, hanging down +behind, and this horrid grease and powder too. + +Most of my life, of course, has been passed in this horrid shape in +which you now see me; but the remembrance of my early days clings to +me, and the love of freedom, and the sense of beauty which I +acquired when the wind played through my natural curls as they +covered the head of my dear Alice, have never forsaken me. It was +then only that I truly lived. But, forgive me--I have the weakness +of old age, and love to talk of youthful pleasures. + +One morning, in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, when I +was just twenty-eight years old, a gentleman of middle age came into +the hair dresser's shop, and asked to look at his wigs. I was shown +to him with some others. After examining us all, and trying on +several, he chose me, because, he said, he thought I was made of the +finest hair. + +"This," said he, "will visit the American colonies, and probably +remain there, for that will, I think, be my home." + +I rejoiced to hear this, for I was weary of my present life, and +longed for some variety. + +The good gentleman who purchased me seemed well satisfied with my +looks; but, when I saw myself in the glass, upon his long, narrow +face, with his great bottle nose, and cheeks like the sides of a +sulky, and all my pretty curls and my bright color gone, I wonder +that each hair did not stand on end with fright; most likely it +would have stood up, but for weight of pomatum and powder. + +Soon after my owner purchased me, he set sail for America. As I was +his new and best wig, I was packed carefully in a box, and knew +nothing till he arrived here, and was settled in his place of +residence. + +The first time I was taken out of my box was on Sunday, when I was +carefully adjusted on the Squire's head. I call him Squire, for I +soon found that Squire was the title every one gave him, as he was +the most important personage in the town in which he lived. I was as +well pleased as a wig could be with the appearance of things in and +around the house I was to inhabit. It was in a village about thirty +miles from Boston, and was like an English country gentleman's +house. A wide hall passed through the middle of it, with a grand +staircase. From the doors at either end of the hall ran rows of elm +trees. One led to the high road, the other up a gentle hill, on the +top of which was a pretty burying ground with a path through it +leading to a small church. + +The Squire had a black man whom he called his boy, and who was, in +fact, his slave, but whom he treated like a friend and brother. + +Some years after, when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, the +Squire called Cato to him, and said, "Cato, you are no longer my +slave; you are free." + +"But, massa, you will not sell me." + +"No, Cato, you are a freeman; I have no right to sell you. I don't +think I ever had any right to sell you; but now the law of the land +makes you free, and I am glad of it." + +"Then I can stay with you of my own free will, massa." + +"Yes, Cato, you can stay or go, just as you please." + +"Then, massa, I stay with you for love, and not cause I am your +slave. Now I your friend." And Cato never left the Squire till the +day of his death. But to return to my story. + +The Squire, as I said, put me on very carefully, and then as +carefully put over me his three-cornered hat, and took his gold- +headed cane, and, with Cato behind him, walked reverently up the +hill to church. + +I was accustomed to the Episcopal church, where dear Alice went +every Sunday; but this was a Presbyterian church, and I had never +been in one before. + +As I said, had not my hairs lost their power of motion by what I had +endured from the scissors, and the vile process of making me into my +present shape, every one of them would have risen up against the so- +called music in this church; but my misfortunes and pomatum kept me +quiet. + +The sermon was at least two hours long, and many a hitch did the +Squire give me before it was over; that was the beginning of the +little trick, which you see I have now, of jerking up a little on +one side occasionally. + +The Squire had brought with him from England a complete set of +furniture for his house; and, after some time, the things reached +our abode which was about thirty miles from the sea coast. + +What all these fine things were for was soon explained. The Squire, +one day, put me into my nice box, putting on an old wig which he +wore on week days. I soon found that we were in some kind of a +vehicle, and, ere long, we arrived at a hotel in Boston. But we did +not stay there long. The Squire was going to be married, and, as I +was his best wig, I, of course, adorned his head at the wedding. + +Who would have believed that I was the same hair that covered the +head of dear Alice when she was a bride? Then curling like +hyacinths, and glowing like sunshine, now stiff, dull and dead; +looking, as I thought then, and think now, like nothing human or +divine. + +It was the second time the Squire had been married, so he was very +sedate in his happiness. He brought home his bride in a few days, +and there, at his excellent, delightful country house, all was soon +arranged in the most orderly way possible. + +The lady had a proper pole arranged for my accommodation, and made +the Squire a nice velvet cap to wear in the evenings, when they were +alone, and he wished to be relieved of my weight. + +The relations of the Squire and his wife often visited them, and +always in parties, English fashion, and remained some days; and then +what feasting and merriment there was! + +The house was surrounded by beautiful woods, and near by was a +lovely pond; and young and gay hearts were often there to wake the +echoes with their cheerful, laughing voices. Cato played on the +violin, and, when the evenings were chilly or rainy, the young +people danced till the small hours of the night. + +All this I witnessed, for the Squire was a gentleman of the old +school, was always in his best clothes for his company, and gave no +sign of weariness till they retired to bed. + +I should mention that the Squire was a justice of the peace. As he +lived in a remote and very quiet country town, he had not many +culprits brought before him. But occasionally he was called upon to +decide upon the proper punishment of some young rogue, and now and +then he had to marry a couple. + +At these times, I was always smoothed and new pomatumed with the +greatest care, then put on very carefully, and examined in the +looking glass two or three times, and readjusted over and over, till +I was as even as justice itself, before the Squire took his gold- +headed cane, and proceeded to consider the case. + +Once a boy was brought before him for stealing chestnuts. Now there +was such an abundance of chestnuts in the town that they were almost +thought common property. It happened, however, that the Squire had +some fine chestnuts himself, and he wished it to be considered an +unpardonable thing to steal chestnuts. So he condemned the boy's +father to pay a very good price for those his son had stolen, +leaving it to the man from whom the chestnuts had been taken to say +how large the quantity was. + +This unjust decision made the man and his son very angry. But my +master was the Squire; and, in those old times, we retained a great +deal of the English reverence for a country gentleman. + +The son of this man, however, had not much reverence for any thing, +and was determined to be revenged upon the Squire, as you will see. +I, however, was the greatest sufferer. It so happened that the pew +in which the boy sat at church was directly behind the Squire's. The +boy carried a piece of shoemaker's wax to meeting with him, and +when, as was usually the case, the Squire's queue came over the edge +of the pew, the young rascal took the opportunity, when no one was +looking, to stick the short queue fast with the wax to the side of +the pew. + +When the Squire stood up, his wig was nearly jerked off his head, +and would have been quite off, but for the boy's father who, seeing +the good gentleman's danger, caught hold of me, tore off the horrid +wax, and then pushed me back into my place. + +All the foolish children in the church giggled at my expense. The +simple Squire, thinking it was a nail or a hook, thanked the man who +had aided him in his distress, and advised him to take out the +troublesome hook. Cato, however, shook his black head and said, +"Guess naughty Pickaninny did de queue of Massa's wig. Neber mind, +Cato no make trouble; queue no feelins; I smood him up. Dem +chestnuts in his gizzard, spoze." + +Not long after this, the poor Squire lost his wife. Her health had +always been very delicate, and he had been a most devoted husband. + +The Squire was a good man, and tried to find consolation in the only +way it may be found, in the religious performance of duty. He became +the benefactor of the village. He was the friend of all who needed +his aid. + +Now, my friends, I must pass over the next ten years. What I have +just related to you of the Squire passed in the year seventeen +hundred and eighty. Now follow me to the year seventeen hundred and +ninety-two. + +The Americans, by their wisdom and bravery, had won their +independence. + +The Squire had done his part for his country by furnishing money, +and by making his large retired mansion an asylum for all his +friends who were in want of it. + +He was now seventy years old; and a haler, heartier, more serene old +man was never seen. His house was the summer rendezvous of all his +young and his old friends. + +Well do I remember one beautiful afternoon, just before sunset, the +Squire's going to the glass, and adjusting me nicely, and then going +to the door, and looking up through the avenue of elms which were +young trees when I was first carried there, and saying, "It is time +my niece and her husband and children were here." + +In a few minutes, a carriage appeared with a lady and her son and +daughter in it. That little girl, then five years old, was +afterwards the mother of our little friend asleep yonder. + +Never was there a more cordial welcome given to friends than the +good Squire gave them, and never was welcome more acceptable. + +There were other friends in the house, and such frolicking and +laughing and dancing on the lawn you seldom see nowadays. + +For many years, the nieces and nephews and their children and +children's children came in this way to refresh body and soul at +their good uncle's; till childhood blossomed into youth, and youth +began to strengthen into maturity, and maturity to fade away into +age. Years gathered around the old man's head, but his vigor +remained. + +You need not bounce in that way, my friend musket, and you, Messrs. +tea-kettle and pitcher, need not try to turn up the noses you have +lost, at my using these flowery expressions. Remember that, for more +than half a century, I dwelt upon a human head. It is natural that I +should have gained something from it, and that I should speak +somewhat as human beings speak. + +I hope you will pardon my talkativeness; and, even if you think me +prosy, let me go on after my own fashion, and finish my story in my +own way, for I am very old, and can speak in no other way. Remember, +too, I shall never speak to you again." + +"Go on, go on," cried the old coat, cloak, and baize gown. + +The rest made no objection, and so the wig continued. "I assure you +it was a very interesting thing to me to witness the changes that +were going on among the Squire's visitors. I saw that child's mother +come, first as a young lady, then as a bride, then as a mother; and +then she came, first with one, then with two, and then with three +children; and then, each year, I saw that these children had grown +bigger, and it was pleasant, as I sat so quietly upon the old +Squire's head, to see them jump out of the carriage each year, run +up to the old man to receive his welcome, and then scamper off into +the garden and fields like so many young animals; it was pleasant to +watch their gleeful faces at his hospitable board, and to hear their +merry shouts; it was pleasant, on Sunday, to see them, with their +father and mother, follow the old gentleman respectfully at a +distance, through the avenue of elms to church, with their small, +solemn faces, just now and then slightly nodding to a buttercup and +snatching it up; while he, with me and his three-cornered hat on his +head, and his gold-headed cane in his hand, and his light drab suit +of clothes, all his dress of the same cloth, and his shoes with gold +buckles, strode along, while Cato, dressed in some of the Squire's +old clothes, walked close behind him like his shadow. You would have +thought my master forty instead of eighty. + +Year after year I witnessed this, till, as I said, the children were +youths, and their parents no longer young. Then the good Squire +began to be, as I am now, a little garrulous; he loved to tell old +stories more than once. But who was there that would not, with +patient love, listen to them for many a time? + +It was affecting to observe how all his dates were from the year +fifty. No matter what story he told, or when it really did happen, +he always finished by adding, "and that happened in the year fifty." + +All his furniture and plate were purchased in the year fifty. It was +to him the beginning of the world. + +"Uncle," said one of his nieces one day to him, "let me try to dress +your wig; I think it wants it." + +"My dear, this wig was bought in the year fifty, and looks well now. +It has done me good service." + +"How beautiful this avenue of elms is!" + +"Yes, they were set out in the year fifty." + +"You have a good housekeeper, uncle." + +"Yes, my dear, she came to me in the year fifty." + +And so on with every thing in and about his house, and so it was +with every event which had made an abiding mark on his memory. + +There was but one thing about which the good Squire showed the real +childishness of his old age, and that was his fruit. He had bushels +and bushels of apples and pears and peaches, but he never thought +them fit to eat till they were at least half rotten. + +His nephews and nieces were of a decidedly different opinion, but +did not like to debate the subject with him; so they had recourse to +a little trick. I don't think it was quite right. The Squire was in +the habit every day of gathering the ripe fruit in baskets, and +putting it in what he called especially his room; it was a sort of +half dressing, half business room. Here it was that he kept the pole +upon which he placed me at night. These baskets of fruit, if the +good man had had his own way, would have remained there till they +were all rotten like the heaps of windfalls which was the fruit he +told the family, and the children especially, they might eat. + +Now it was the custom of two or three roguish boys and girls, who +visited him, to gather baskets of this rotten fruit, and when the +good man had gone to bed, to carry them into this room, and put them +in the place of the baskets of sound ripe fruit, which they took for +themselves and others to eat. + +In a day or two, the good Squire would look at his baskets, and, +finding the fruit decaying, would call it fit to eat, bring it into +the parlor, and then call in the children, and say to them, "Here, +boys and girls, here is nice ripe fruit for you; you can just cut +out the rotten with your penknives;" and then he would distribute it +among them. + +The little monkeys, of course, could scarce repress their giggles. + +I can make no apology for their cheat, except that, upon this point, +the good man was really childish; and, as he did not eat the fruit +himself, or sell it, or do any thing with it, but give to the pigs +what was not eaten in the family, no one was wronged by the trick. +It was, in fact, a piece of sport. + +As you see, I had the benefit of being present at the whole of the +fun; and I can hear now, it seems to me, as plainly as I did then, +the suppressed laughter of these roguish children when they came +into the room where I was, to exchange baskets of rotten for baskets +of sound fruit. + +In his eighty-seventh year, the old man ran a race with one of these +children, and contrived, by an artifice, to win it. She got before +him; when, fearing he would hurt himself, she stopped to look after +him; he came up to her; and then, just pushing her back a little, +got before her to the goal, which was very near them. How he did +shout, as though he were only twenty, and what a hitch he gave me on +the occasion! + +In his ninety-seventh year he died. It was a pity he did not live to +be a hundred. The night before he died, he went into his room to put +me on my accustomed pole. He did not see clearly, and let me fall on +the floor. + +"Ah!" said he, "the old head will fall too, before long. No matter; +it is time it should go. Here, Cato, help your old master." + +Cato was at hand, picked me up, put me in my place, and helped his +master to bed. + +I never saw the dear old man again. + +The next thing that I remember, is being put into a box and carried +I knew not whither. + +The first light I saw was the dim light of this garret. + +The mother of that little girl took me out; and as she put me on my +pole, which she had caused to be brought here also, "People may +laugh at me," said she, "but I will keep the dear old man's wig. It +seems to me a part of him, and is a memorial of the happy hours I +have passed under his hospitable roof." + +It is now one hundred and six years since I was born into this +world. For twenty-eight years I flourished on the beautiful head of +dear Alice. Ever since then, I have been only a wig. I am now +falling into utter decay. If any one were to shake me, I should fall +to pieces. I have, like many of you, my friends, since inhabiting +this garret, been abused and made fun of, by children. I was once +put upon the head of a donkey, while a boy with a fool's cap on his +head rode him, and took a love letter to a young man. I was also put +upon the head of a great monkey brought to the house for exhibition, +who took me off his head and threw me at the boys. Once, as you +know, I was made to play the mock judge on the head of a dog. Once +that little girl who sleeps there, used me to keep a litter of +kittens warm in, on a cold winter night. This nearly killed me, and +from that moment the children were forbidden to touch me. + +"I have now," concluded the wig, "only to ask your pardon, my +friends, for the impatience with which I have listened to your +stories when I thought them too long, and for the truly human vanity +and inconsistency which made me tell the longest story myself. But I +knew that no one waited for me. I shall certainly never speak more. +These are my last words. Farewell." + +Just at these words, it seemed to me as if the wig gradually +dissolved into a bright halo. Then suddenly it fell into golden +ringlets all so soft and graceful and beautiful; while I looked, +they seemed to shade such a lovely, innocent face, that I knew it +must be that of dear Alice looking like an angel in heaven. + +I awoke very happy. There was every thing in the old garret just as +I first described it, and all as quiet and still as if nothing had +happened." + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Talkative Wig, by Eliza Lee Follen + diff --git a/old/tktvw10.zip b/old/tktvw10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb8c3d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tktvw10.zip |