Will your heart grow strong, if the strength of her love can dam up the fountains of tears, and the tied tongue not tell of bereavement? Will it solace you to find her parting the poor treasure of food you have stolen for her, with begging, foodless children? But this ill, strong hands, and Heaven's help, will put down. Wealth again; Flowers again; Patrimonial acres again; 1o Brightness again. But your little Bessy, your favorite child, is pining. Would to God! you say in agony, that wealth could bring fullness again into that blanched cheek, or round those little thin 15 lips once more; but it cannot. Thinner and thinner they grow; plaintive and more plaintive her sweet voice. is which unstrung your soul to such tears as you pray God may be spared you again,has endeared the little fellow to your heart a thousand-fold. 5 And now, with his pale sister in the grave, all that love has come away from the mound, where worms feast, and centers on the boy. 'Dear Bessy' and your tones tremble; you feel that she is on the edge of the 20 grave? Can you pluck her back? Can endearments stay her? Business heavy, away from the loved child; home you go, to fondle while yet time is left; but this time you are too late. She is gone. 25 She cannot hear you: she cannot thank you for the violets you put within her stiff white hand. And then the grassy mound the cold shadow of the headstone! The wind, growing with the night, is rattling at the window-panes, and whistles dismally. I wipe a tear, and, in the interval of my Reverie, I thank God that I am no such mourner. But gaiety, snail-footed, creeps back to the household. All is bright again; · the violet bed's not sweeter How you watch the storms lest they harm him! How often you steal to his bed late at night, and lay your hand lightly upon the brow, where the curls cluster thick, rising and falling with the throbbing temples, and watch, for minutes together, the little lips half parted, and listen - your ear close to them if the breathing be regular and sweet. But the day comes - the night rather — when you can catch no breathing. Aye, put your hair away; compose yourself; listen again. No, there is nothing! - Put your hand now to his brow,- damp, indeed but not with healthful night-sleep; it is not your hand,- no, do not deceive yourself, it is your loved boy's forehead that is so cold; and your loved boy will never speak to you again- never play he is dead! again Ah, the tears the tears; what blessed things are tears! Never fear now to let them fall on his forehead, or his lip, lest you waken him. Clasp him- clasp him harder; you cannot hurt, you cannot 35 waken him. Lay him down, gently or not, it is the same; he is stiff; he is stark and cold. 30 But courage is elastic; it is our pride. It recovers itself easier, thought I, than Than the delicious breath marriage sends 40 these embers will get into blaze again. forth. But courage, and patience, and faith, and hope have their limit. Blessed be the man who escapes such trial as will determine limit! To a lone man it comes not near; for how can trial take hold where there is nothing by which to try? A funeral? You reason with philosophy. A grave-yard? You read Hervey, and muse upon the wall. A friend dies? You sigh, you pat your dog; it is over. Losses? You retrench; you light your pipe; it is forgotten. Čalumny? You laugh you sleep. But with that childless wife clinging to you in love and sorrow what then? Can you take down Seneca now, and coolly blow the dust from the leaf-tops? Can you crimp your lip with Voltaire? Can you smoke idly, your feet dangling with the ivies, your thoughts all waving fancies upon a church-yard wall,- a wall that borders the grave of your boy? Can you amuse yourself by turning stinging Marital into rime? Can you pat your dog, and seeing him wakeful and kind, say 'It is enough"? Can you sneer at calumny, and sit by your fire dozing? Blessed, thought I again, is the man who escapes such trial as will measure the limit of patience and the limit of courage! But the trial comes: colder and colder were growing the embers. That wife, over whom your love broods, is fading. Not beauty fading; that, now that your heart is wrapped in her being, would be nothing. careless while you are steeped in care. They hustle you in the street; they smile at you across the table; they bow carelessly over the way; they do not know 5 what canker is at your heart. The undertaker comes with his bill for the dead boy's funeral. He knows your grief; he is respectful. You bless him in your soul. You wish the laughing street10 goers were, all undertakers. 15 She sees with quick eye your dawning 20 apprehension, and she tries hard to make that step of hers elastic. Your trials and your loves together have centered your affections. They are not now as when you were a lone man, wide- 25 spread and superficial. They have caught from domestic attachments a finer tone and touch. They cannot shoot out tendrils into barren world-soil, and suck up thence strengthening nourishment. They 30 have grown under the forcing-glass of home-roof; they will not now bear exposure. as 35 You do not now look men in the face as if a heart-bond was linking youif a community of feeling lay between. There is a heart-bond that absorbs all others; there is a community that monopolizes your feeling. When the heart lay wide open, before it had grown upon and 40 closed around particular objects, it could take strength and cheer from a hundred connections that now seem colder than ice. And now those particular objects, alas 45 for you! are failing. What anxiety pursues you! How you struggle to fancy there is no danger; how she struggles to persuade you there is no danger! 50 How it grates now on your ear-the toil and turmoil of the city! It was music when you were alone; it was pleasant even when from the din you were elaborating comforts for the cherished objects,- when 55 you had such sweet escape as evening drew on. Now it maddens you to see the world Your eye follows the physician as he leaves your house: is he wise? you ask yourself; is he prudent? is he the best? Did he never fail; is he never forgetful? And now the hand that touches yours is it no thinner, no whiter than yesterday? Sunny days come when she revives; color comes back; she breathes freer; she picks flowers; she meets you with a smile: hope lives again. But the next day of storm she is fallen. She cannot talk even; she presses your hand. You hurry away from business before your time. What matter for clients; who is to reap the rewards? What matter for fame; whose eye will it brighten? What matter for riches; whose is the inheritance? You find her propped with pillows; she is looking over a little picture-book bethumbed by the dear boy she has lost. She hides it in her chair; she has pity on you. Another day of revival, when the spring sun shines, and flowers open out-of-doors; she leans on your arm, and strolls into the garden where the first birds are singing. Listen to them with her; what memories are in bird-songs! You need not shudder at her tears; they are tears of Thanksgiving. Press the hand that lies light upon your arm, and you, too, thank God, while yet you may! You are early home-mid-afternoon. Your step is not light; it is heavy, terrible. They have sent for you. She is lying down, her eyes half closed, her breathing long and interrupted. She hears you; her eye opens: you put your hand in hers; yours trembles; hers does not. Her lips move: it is your name. 'Be strong,' she says; God will help. you.' She presses harder your hand: ‘Adieu!' A long breath.- another: you are alone again. No tears now; poor man! you cannot find them. Again home early. There is a smell of varnish in your house. A coffin is there; they have clothed the body in decent grave-clothes, and the undertaker is screwing down the lid, slipping round on tiptoe. Does he fear to waken her? 5 He asks you a simple question about the inscription upon the plate, rubbing it with 10 his coat-cuff. You look him straight in the eye; you motion to the door; you dare not speak. He takes up his hat, and glides out stealthful as a cat. Pass The man has done his work well for all. It is a nice coffin,, a very nice coffin. your hand over it; how smooth! housekeeper has made comfortable with clean hearth and blaze of sticks. Sit down in your chair; there is another velvet-cushioned one, over against yours, empty. You press your fingers on your eyeballs, as if you would press out something that hurt the brain; but you cannot. Your head leans upon your hand; your eye rests upon the flashing blaze. Ashes always come after blaze. Go now into the room where she was sick, softly, lest the prim housekeeper come after. They have put new dimity upon her 15 chair; they have hung new curtains over the bed. They have removed from the stand its phials, and silver bell, they have put a little vase of flowers in their place; the perfume will not offend the sick sense now. They have half opened the window, that the room so long closed may have air. It will not be too cold. Some sprigs of mignonette are lying carelessly in a little gilt-edged saucer. 20 She loved mignonette. It is a good stanch table the coffin rests on; it is your table; you are a housekeeper, a man of family. Aye, of family! keep down outcry, or 25 the nurse will be in. Look over at the pinched features; is this all that is left of her? And where is your heart now? No, don't thrust your nails into your hands, nor mangle your lip, nor grate your 30 teeth together. If you could only weep! Another day. The coffin is gone out. The stupid mourners have wept - what idle tears! She, with your crushed heart, has gone out. Will you have pleasant evenings at your home now? Go into your parlor that your prim She is not there. Oh, God! thou who dost temper the wind to the shorn lamb, be kind! The embers were dark: I stirred them; there was no sign of life. My dog was asleep. The clock in my tenant's chamber had struck one. I dashed a tear or two from my eyes; how they came there I know not. I half ejaculated a prayer of thanks that such desolation had not yet come nigh me, and 35 a prayer of hope that it might never come. In a half hour more I was sleeping soundly. My Reverie was ended. Harper's Magazine, October, 1850. FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823-1893) The early life of Parkman was much like Lowell's: he was born at Boston, the son of a minister, he completed his course at Harvard and entered upon the study of law, and he soon turned from it into occupations to him more congenial. A love of out-of-doors life seems to have directed him to his life-work. Even as a college student he had delighted in making excursions into the wilderness, especially to historic places like the northern battle-fields of the Revolution. Later he explored the historic places of New York and Pennsylvania, visiting all the remnants of Indian tribes, and collecting all possible material that might later be of value, and in one of his excursions he penetrated as far west as St. Louis. In 1846 he made his wellknown trip among the Indian tribes of the north-west, lived for a whole summer in Indian lodges, and on his return published an account of his adventures in the Knickerbocker Magazine, 1847, later collecting the papers for his first book: The California and Oregon Trail, 1849. He followed it in 1851 with The Conspiracy of Pontiac, and then began systematically upon his study of the period to which he was to devote his life, the period of the struggle of France and England for North America. The rest of Parkman's biography is chiefly a record of his heroic struggles with impaired eyesight and ill health, a list of his books, and an account of his excursions to regions that were to figure in his narrative. At times he found it impossible even to look at a newspaper, and for a long period he devoted himself solely to horticulture. There were years when he could do only a few moments of work each day, but with a tenacity and a courage rarely paralleled in the history of literature he kept on and the year before his death completed the work he had set out to do,- a history of France in America in seven volumes. As a historian he ranks high. To accuracy and fullness of material he added a narrative style as compelling and as fascinating as the best of Cooper's. His material is picturesque in the extreme: chapter after chapter read like historical romance. He added to his narrative power another quality he worked more fully from first-hand observation than it will ever be possible to do again. The Indian that he studied so carefully in his remote fastnesses was the primitive Indian of the French wars, and to-day he has disappeared forever. THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC CHAPTER VIII 1763 INDIAN PREPARATION I interrupt the progress of the narrative to glance for a moment at the Indians in their military capacity, and observe how 10 far they were qualified to prosecute the formidable war into which they were about to plunge. A people living chiefly by the chase, and therefore, of necessity, thinly and widely 15 scattered; divided into numerous tribes, held together by no strong principles of cohesion, and with no central government to combine their strength, could act with little efficiency against such an enemy as 20 was now opposed to them. Loose and disjointed as a whole, the government even of individual tribes, and of their smallest separate communities, was too feeble to deserve the name. There were, it is true, chiefs whose office was in a manner hereditary; but their authority was wholly of a 5 moral nature, and enforced by no compulsory law. Their province was to advise, and not to command. Their influence, such as it was, is chiefly to be ascribed to the principle of hero-worship, natural to the Indian character, and to the reverence for age, which belongs to a state of society where a patriarchal element largely prevails. It was their office to declare war and make peace; but when war was declared, they had no power to carry the declaration into effect. The warriors fought if they chose to do so; but if, on the contrary, they preferred to remain quiet, no man could force them to raise the hatchet. The war-chief, whose part it was to lead them to battle, was a mere partisan, whom his bravery and exploits had led to distinction. If he thought proper, he sang his war-song and danced his war-dance; and as many of the young men as were disposed to follow him, gathered around and enlisted themselves under him. Over these volunteers he had no legal authority, and they could desert him. at any moment, with no other penalty than disgrace. When several war parties, of different bands or tribes, were united in a common enterprise, their chiefs elected to a leader, who was nominally to command the whole; but unless this leader was a man of uncommon reputation and ability, his commands were disregarded, and his authority was a cipher. Among his fol- 15 lowers, every latent element of discord, pride, jealousy, and ancient half-smothered feuds, were ready at any moment to break out, and tear the whole asunder. His warriors would often desert in bodies; and 20 many an Indian army, before reaching the enemy's country, has been known to dwindle away until it was reduced to a mere scalping party. To twist a rope of sand would be as 25 easy a task as to form a permanent and effective army of such materials. The wild love of freedom, and impatience of all control, which mark the Indian race, render them utterly intolerant of military 30 discipline. Partly from their individual character, and partly from this absence of subordination, spring results highly unfavorable to continued and extended military operations. Indian warriors, when 35 acting in large masses, are to the last degree wayward, capricious, and unstable; infirm of purpose as a mob of children, and devoid of providence and foresight. To provide supplies for a campaign forms 40 no part of their system. Hence the blow must be struck at once, or not struck at all; and to postpone victory is to insure defeat. It is when acting in small, detached parties, that the Indian warrior puts forth 45 his energies, and displays his admirable address, endurance, and intrepidity. It is then that he becomes a truly formidable enemy. Fired with the hope of winning scalps, he is stanch as a bloodhound. No 50 hardship can divert him from his purpose, and no danger subdue his patient and cautious courage. From their inveterate passion for war, the Indians are always prompt enough to 55 engage in it; and on the present occasion, the prevailing irritation gave ample assurance that they would not remain idle. While there was little risk that they would capture any strong and well-defended fort, or carry any important position, there was, on the other hand, every reason to apprehend wide-spread havoc, and a destructive war of detail. That the war might be carried on with effect, it was the part of the Indian leaders to work upon the passions of their people, and keep alive their irritation; to whet their native appetite for blood and glory, and cheer them on to the attack; to guard against all that might quench their ardor, or cool their fierceness; to avoid pitched battles; never to fight except under advantage; and to avail themselves of all the aid which craft and treachery could afford. The very circumstances which unfitted the Indians for continued and concentrated attack were, in another view, highly advantageous, by preventing the enemy from assailing them with vital effect. It was no easy task to penetrate tangled woods in search of a foe, alert and active as a lynx, who would seldom stand and fight, whose deadly shot and triumphant whoop were the first and often the last tokens of his presence, and who, at the approach of a hostile force, would vanish into the black recesses of forests and pine swamps, only to renew his attacks with unabated ardor. There were no forts to capture, no magazines to destroy, and little property to seize upon. No warfare could be more perilous and harassing in its prosecution, or less satisfactory in its results. The English colonies at this time were but ill-fitted to bear the brunt of the impending war. The army which had conquered Canada was broken up and dissolved; the provincials were disbanded, and most of the regulars sent home. A few fragments of regiments, miserably wasted by war and sickness, had just arrived from the West Indies; and of these, several were already ordered to England, to be disbanded. There remained barely troops enough to furnish feeble garrisons for the various forts on the frontier and in the Indian country. At the head of this dilapidated army was Sir Jeffrey Amherst, who had achieved the reduction of Canada, and clinched the nail which Wolfe had driven. In some respects he was wellfitted for the emergency; but, on the other hand, he held the Indians in supreme contempt, and his arbitrary treatment of them and total want of every quality of con |