Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Part 44

"Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet of his sail; "there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes.

There's white water again! close to! Spring!" Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enraged serpents.

"That's his hump. _There, there_, give it to him!" whispered Starbuck.

A short rus.h.i.+ng sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion, came an invisible push from astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapor shot up near by; something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the white curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all blended together and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped.

Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round it we picked up the floating oars, and las.h.i.+ng them across the gunwale, tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes, the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom of the ocean.

=_Josiah Gilbert Holland, 1819-._=

From The Bay Path.

=_310._= THE WEDDING-PRESENT.

John Woodc.o.c.k was the first to break the silence. Rising from his seat, and making his way out of the crowd around him, he crossed the room to where his daughter was standing absorbed in, and half bewildered by the scene, and whispering a few words in her ear, took her by the hand, and led her before the married pair. Mary extended her hand to him instantly and cordially, and exclaimed, "I knew that you would come to me and congratulate me."

"That wan't my arrant any way," said Woodc.o.c.k bluntly, "and I shouldn't begin with you if it was."

"Why John! I am astonished!" exclaimed the bride; "I thought you was one of the best friends I had in the world."

But Mary was somewhat affected with Woodc.o.c.k's seriousness, and, with no reply to Holyoke, beyond a smile, she asked Woodc.o.c.k's reasons for the statement he had made.

"I didn't come up here to talk about this, and p'raps it ain't the right time to do it, but there's no use backin' down when you begin. I've got a consait that men and women ain't built out of the same kind of timber.

Look at my hand--a great pile o' bones covered with brown luther, with the hair on,--and then look at yourn. White oak ain't ba.s.s, is it? Every man's hand ain't so black as mine, and every woman's ain't so white as yourn, but there's always difference enough to show, and there's just as much odds in their doin's and dispositions as there is in their hands. I know what women be. I've wintered and summered with 'em, and take 'em by and large, they're better'n men. Now and then a feller gets. .h.i.tched to a hedgehog, but most of 'em get a woman that's too good for 'em. They're gentle and kind, and runnin' over with good feelin's, and will stick to a fellow a mighty sight longer'n he'll stick to himself. My woman's dead and gone, but if there wan't any women in the world, and I owned it, I'd sell out for three s.h.i.+llin's, and throw in stars enough to make it an object for somebody to take it off my hands.

"Some time ago," resumed Woodc.o.c.k. "I heerd the little ones and some of the old ones tellin' what they was goin' to give Mary Pynchon when she got married; and it set me to thinkin' what I could give her, for I knew if anybody ought to give her anything, it was me. But I hadn't any money, and I couldn't send to the Bay for anything, and I shouldn't 'a known what to get if I could, I might have shot a buck, but I couldn't 'a brought it to the weddin', and it didn't seem exactly s.h.i.+p-shape to give her anything she could eat up and forget. So I thought I'd give her a keepsake my wife left me when she died. It's all I've got of any vally to me, and it's somethin' that'll grow better every day it is kep', if you'll take care of it. I don't know what'll come of me, and I want to leave it in good hands."

The bride began to grow curious, and despite their late repulse the group began to collect again.

"It's a queer thing for a present, perhaps, (and Woodc.o.c.k's lip began to quiver and his eye to moisten,) but I hope it'll do you some service.

'Taint anything't you can wear in your hair, or throw over your shoulders. It's--it's--"

"It's what?" inquired Mary, with an encouraging smile.

Woodc.o.c.k took hold of the hand of his child, and placing it in that of the questioner, burst out with, "G.o.d knows that's the handle to it," and retreated to the window, where he spent several minutes looking out into the night, and endeavoring to repress the spasms of a choking throat.

Neither Mary Holyoke nor her husband could disguise their emotions, as they saw before them the living testimonial of Woodc.o.c.k's grat.i.tude and trust. Mary stooped and kissed the gift-child, who clung to her as if, contrary to her father's statement, she was an article of wearing apparel.

=_John Esten Cooke,[71] 1830-._=

From "Estcourt, or the Memoirs of a Virginia Gentleman."

=_311._= THE PORTRAIT.

"I see you are prepared now," said the painter; "the thought I endeavored to suggest has entered your mind, for I read the expression in your face like an open book. Well, see if I have deceived you--look!"

And as he spoke, the painter removed a green curtain from the frame of a picture, so arranged that the full light of the middle window fell upon it.

Estcourt almost cried out with astonishment. Here, before him, as though ready to start from the canvas, was the woman who had been, his fate--who had died long years before; there in the full blaze of light, he saw her who had thrown the shadow upon his existence, which still clouded it, fresh, softly smiling, alive almost on the speaking and eloquent canvas. The blue eyes beamed with a tender and subdued sweetness, the delicate forehead, with its soft brown curls, rose airily above the perfectly arched brows, the innocent lips were half parted, and the portrait seemed almost ready to move from its frame, and descend, a living woman, into the apartment.

[Footnote 71: Conspicuous among the younger writers of Virginia, of which State he is a native; author of many novels.]

=_312._= ASPECTS OF SUMMER.

The glory of the summer deepened and grew more intense, the foliage a.s.sumed a darker tint of emerald, the sky glowed with a more dazzling blue, and the songs of the busy harvesters came sad and slow, like the long, melancholy swell of pensive sighs across the hills and fields, dying away finally into the "harvest home," which told that the golden grain would wave no more in the wind until another year. The "harvest moon" looked down on bare fields now, and June was dead. At last came August, the month of great white clouds and imperial sunsets, the crowning hours of the rich summer, soon to fade away into the yellow autumn, the month of reveries and dreams on the banks of shadowy streams, or beneath, the old majestic trees of silent forests.

=_Sarah A. Dorsey,[72] about 1835-._=

From "Lucia Dare."

=_313._= SCENERY AND SOCIETY AT NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI.

The village of Natchez, under the hill, was cl.u.s.tered close to the water's edge; the bluffs rose precipitously, garnished with pine trees, and locusts, and tufted gra.s.ses; the vista here terminated in Brown's beautiful gardens, gay with flower-beds and closely-clipped hedges. Far away over the river stretched the broad emerald plain of Louisiana, level with the stream, extending for many, many miles, its champaign checkered with groups of white plantation-houses, spotted with groves of trees, rich in autumnal beauty, glowing with crimson, gold, and green, softened by veils of long, gray moss. This plain was dotted with lovely lakes, whose waters shone in the slanting rays of the declining sun....

The sun went down quickly, as he does at sea, a round, red fire-ball, while light, splendid clouds of purple, pink, lilac, and gray, on the blue, blue heavens, refracted the ascending, slender, quivering rays of the disappearing orb, the type of Deity in all natural religions, the Totem of the Natchez Indians. Beloved city--bright "city of the Sun"!

How often have I paced with restless child's feet, the road that Lucian was now traveling over, and listened, as he did, but more lingeringly, to the sounds of gentle human life, stirring within thy peaceful homes!

How often have I thanked G.o.d for my beautiful childhood's home--for my precious Southern Land--for its suns.h.i.+ne, its verdure, its forests, its flowers, its perfume; but oh! above all, for the loving, refined, intelligent, gentle race of people it was my great, my priceless privilege, to be born amongst--a people worthy to live with, yes, _worthy to die for_! The stern besom of war has wept over you, beloved Natchez--your fairest homes have been desolated, your lovely gardens are now only remembrances--your family circles are broken up--your bravest sons are sleeping in the dust of death, or weeping tears of bitterness in exile--your daughters, bowed down with penury and grief, are mourning beside their darkened firesides--your joyous households transferred to other and kindlier lands. The forms of my kindred faded into phantoms of the past--strangers sit now in the place that once was mine; but yet, thou art lovely, still beloved in thy ruin, in thy desolation--city of my heart--city of my love--city of my childish joy! Oh! city of my dead!

[Footnote 72: Prominent among the living authors of Louisiana.]

=_Anne Moncure Crane.[73]_=

From "Opportunity;" a Novel.

=_314._= IMPRESSION OF A SEA SCENE.

The tide had been out, but it was now rising; and they stood silently watching the long, low waves dissolve in foam, whose white edges each time crept nearer and nearer their feet. No one was conscious of the duration of the silence. The sea's monotony of motion and sound seemed to fill the void, and lull them to quietude. But beautiful as was the scene that lay before her, Harvey gradually forgot it ...

The two women had been nearly facing each other; and in a moment or two Harvey put his hand upon Rose's shoulder, and with the other, motioned her to look out upon the sea at her side. As she obeyed, her faint, inarticulate expression of surprise and pleasure made both men follow her example. It was only a coasting vessel, which had come rather close to the sh.o.r.e, and was sailing swiftly by, before the freshening breeze; but Its broad, white sails, with the moonlight upon them, and its gliding, soundless motion, gave it an unearthly effect, as of a phantom of light floating between the dark sea and sky, or a great white-winged spirit sweeping past. When it had vanished into the distance and darkness, Rose turned, and looked up at Harvey with mute but half-parted lips, with eyes dilating with light, only this for a moment, but Miss Barney knew she had accomplished her wish.

The others also did not speak. But Grahame made an involuntary angry movement of his foot upon the sand.

[Footnote 73: A young auth.o.r.ess of Maryland: has written two novels of unusual promise.]