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My answer was then what it is now: Were I to undertake to utter one-thousandth part that the importance of the theme demands, the contest would be between me and Time. I should need "all the time there is."

Henry Ward Beecher once prefaced a lecture delivered during the Civil War by saying: "The Copperhead species chancing to abound in this locality, I have been requested to select as my subject this evening something that will not be likely to lead to the mention of Slavery."

"I confess myself to be somewhat perplexed by this petition," the orator went on to say, with the twinkle in his eye we all recollect--"for I have yet to learn of any subject that could not easily lead me up to the discussion of a sin against God and man which I could not exaggerate were every letter a Mt. Sinai--I mean, American Slavery."

Likening the lesser to the greater, allow me to say that I cannot imagine any topic worthy the attention of God-fearing, humanity-loving men and women that would not be connected in some degree, near or remote, with "Home, and How to Make Home Happy."

The general principles underlying home-making of the right kind are as well-known as the fact that what is named gravitation draws falling bodies to the earth. These principles may be set down roughly as Order, Kindness and Mutual Forbearance. Upon one or another of these pegs hangs everything which enters into the comfort and pleasure of the household, taken collectively and individually. They are the beams, the uprights and the roofing of the building.

The chats, more or less confidential and altogether unconventional, which I propose to hold with the readers of this modest volume have to do with certain sub-laws which are so often overlooked that--to return to the figure of the building--the wind finds its way through chinks; the floors creak and the general impression is that of bare homeliness. House and Home go together upon tongue and upon pen as naturally as hook-and-eye, shovel-and-tongs, knife-and-fork,--yet the coupling is rather a trick learned through habit than an act of reason. The words are not synonyms of necessity or in fact.

Upon these, the first pages of my unconventional book, I avow my knowledge of what, so far from humiliating, stimulates me--to wit, that nine-tenths of those who will look beyond the title-page will be women. This is well, and as I would have it to be, for without feminine agency no house, however well appointed, can be anything higher than an official residence.

Man's first possession in a world then unmarred by sin was a dwelling-place--but Eden was not a home until the woman joined him there. Throughout the ages and all over the world, as mother, wife, sister, daughter she has stood with him as the representative of the rest, sympathy and love to be found nowhere except under his own roof-tree, and beside his own fireside. It is not the house that makes the home, any more than it is the jeweled case that makes the watch, or the body that makes the human being. It is the Presence, the nameless influence which is the earliest acknowledged by the child, and the latest to be forgotten by man or woman. The establishment of this power is essentially woman's prerogative.

In this one respect--I dare not say in any other--we outrank our brothers. They can build palaces and the furniture that fits them up in regal state; they can, even better than we, prepare for the royal tables food convenient for them, and fashion the attire of the revelers, and make the music and sing the songs and write the books and paint the pictures of the world. They may make and execute our laws and sail our seas, and fight our battles, and--after dutiful consultation with us--cast our votes. There is no magnanimity in admitting all this. It is the due of that noblest work of God, a strong, good, gentle man to receive the concession and to know how frankly we make it. To them as theologians, logicians, impartial historians, as priests, prophets, and kings--we do cheerful obeisance, yet with the look of one who but half hides a happy secret in her heart that compensates for all she resigns. There is not a true-hearted woman alive who would give up her birthright to become--we will say Christopher Columbus himself.

It must be a fine thing, though, to be a man on some accounts;--to be emancipated forever-and-a-day from the thraldom of skirts for instance, and to push through a crowd to read the interjectional headlines upon a bulletin board, instead of going meekly and unenlightened home, to be told by John three hours later that "a woman's curiosity passes masculine comprehension, and that he is too tired and hungry to talk." It must be a satisfaction to be able to hit another nail with a hammer than that attached to one's own thumb, and to hurl a stone from the shoulder instead of tossing it from the wrist; there must be sublimity in the thrill with which the stroke-oar of the 'Varsity's crew bends to his work, and the ecstasy of the successful crack pitcher of a baseball team passes the descriptive power of a woman's tongue. Nevertheless, the greatest architectural genius who ever astonished the world with a pyramid, a cathedral, or a triumphal street-arch, could never create and keep a Home. The meanest hut in the Jersey meadows, the doorway of which frames in the dusk of evening the figure of a woman with a baby in her arms, silhouetted upon the red background of fire and lamp kindled to welcome the returning husband and father, harbors as guest a viewless but "incomparable sweet" angel that never visits the superb club-house where men go from spirit to spirit in the vain attempt to make home of that which is no home.

"You write--do you?" snarled Napoleon I, insolently to the wittiest woman of the Paris salons. "What, for instance, have been some of your works since you have been in this country?"

"Three children, sire!" retorted the mother of Madame Emile de Girardin.

It was this same ready witted mother whom another woman pronounced the happiest of mortals.

"She does everything well--children, books and preserves."

Her range was wide. Comparatively few of her sex can grasp that octave. Upon the simplest, as upon the wisest, Heaven has bestowed the talent of home-making, precious and incommunicable.

Woman's Work in the Home! Taking up, without irreverence, the magnificent hyperbole of the beloved disciple, I may truly say, "that if they should be written, every one, I suppose the world itself would not contain the books that would be written."

Let us touch one or two points very briefly. I have said that men can furnish houses more artistically than we, and that as professional cooks they surpass us. It should follow naturally that men, to whose hearts the stomach is the shortest thoroughfare, would, in a body, resort to hotels for daily food. There is but one satisfactory explanation of the unphilosophical fact that the substantial citizen who, during a domestic interregnum, makes the experiment of three meals a day for one month at the best restaurant in New York City returns with gladness and singleness of heart to his own extension-table--and that were I to put the question "Contract Cookery or Home Cookery?" to the few Johns who deign to peruse these lines, the acclaim would be--"Better, as everyday fare, is a broiled beefsteak and a mealy potato at home, than a palatial hotel and ten courses."

There is individuality in the steak broiled for John's very self, and sentiment in the pains taken to keep the starch in his potato, and solid satisfaction in putting one's knees under his own mahogany. The least romantic of gourmands objects to stirring his appetite into a common vat with five hundred others. But there is something back of all this that makes home-fare delicious, when the house mother smiles across the dish she has sweetened with love and spiced with good-will, and thus transformed it into a message from her heart to the hearts of the dear ones to whom she ministers.

John--being of the masculine gender according to a decree of Nature, and, therefore, irresponsible for the slow pace at which his wits move--may not be able at once to analyze the odd heartache he feels in surveying the apartments fitted up by the upholsterer--or to tell you why they become no longer a tri-syllabled word, but "our rooms," within a day after wife and daughters have taken possession of them. The honest fellow cannot see but that the furniture is the same, and each article standing in the same place--but the new atmosphere "which is the old," greets him upon the threshold, and steals into his heart before he has fairly entered. Anybody could have shaken the stiffness out of that porti?re, and put a low, shaded lamp under the picture he likes best, and broken up the formal symmetry of the bric-a-brac that reminded him, although he did not dare confess it, of a china shop, and set a slender vaselet with one big ragged golden globe of a chrysanthemum in it here, and over there a bowl of long-stemmed roses--. But what hireling, O blind and dear John! would have left a bit of fancy work with the needle sticking in it, and scissors lying upon it, on the table in library or smoking room, and put the song you always ask for at twilight upon the open piano, and, just where you would choose to cast yourself down to listen, your especial Sleepy Hollow of chair or lounge with the slumber robe worked last Christmas by loving fingers thrown invitingly across it?

What professional art could make the vestibule of your house--a rented cottage, maybe--the gateway to another, and a purer, higher, happier sphere than the world you shut out with the closing of the front door? You would never get upon so much as bowing terms with your better self but for that front door and the latch key which lets you into the hall brightened by loving smiles, made merry by welcoming voices.

Talk of the prose of everyday life! When Poetry is hounded from every other nook of the earth which the Maker of it meant should be one vast, sublime epic, she will find an inviolable retreat under the Lares and Penates guarding the ingleside, and crown as priestess forever the wife and mother who makes and keeps the Home.

It could hardly be otherwise. To no other of his co-workers does the Lord of life grant such opportunities as to woman. Her baby is laid in the mother's arms to have, and to hold, and to fashion, without let or hindrance. Hisld seem that a foreshadowing of the future had fallen around her, for when at last Charlie's farewell kiss was warm upon her cheek, her voice was cheerful as she said, "You will send for me and I shall surely come." Could she have known how long and wearisome were the miles, how dark and lonely was the wood, and how full of danger was the road which lay between her and Charlie's future home, she might not have been so sure that they would meet again.

One after another the waggons belonging to Deacon Wilder passed down the narrow road, and were lost to view in the deep forest which stretched away to the west as far as the eye could reach. Here for a short time we will leave them, while we introduce to our readers another family, whose fortunes are closely interwoven with our first party.

Five years prior to the emigration of Deacon Wilder, Mr. Gorton, a former neighbour, had, with his family, removed to Kentucky, and found a home near Lexington. Around his fireside in Virginia once had gathered three young children, Robert, Madeline and Marian. Robert, the eldest, was not Mr. Gorton's son, but the child of a sister, Mrs. Hunting, who on her death bed had bequeathed her only boy to the care of her brother. Madeline, when three years of age, was one day missed from her father's house. Long and protracted search was made, which resulted, at length, in the discovery of a part of the child's dress near a spot where lay a pool of blood, and the mutilated remains of what was probably once the merry laughing Madeline. As only a few of the bones and a small part of the flesh was left, it was readily supposed that the wolves, of which there were many at that time in the woods, had done the bloody deed. Amid many tears the remains were gathered up, placed in a little coffin, and buried beneath the aged oak under which they were found. Years passed on, and the lost Madeline ceased to be spoken of save by her parents, who could never forget.

Marian, the youngest and now the only remaining daughter of Mr. Gorton, was, at the time of her father's emigration, fourteen years of age. She was a fair, handsome girl, and already toward her George Wilder, who was four years her senior, had turned his eyes, as toward the star which was to illuminate his future horizon. But she went from him, and thenceforth his heart yearned for the woods and hills of Kentucky, and it was partly through his influence that his father had finally determined to remove thither. Thus, while Charlie, creeping to the far end of the waggon, wept as he thought of home and Ella, George was anticipating a joyous meeting with the beautiful Marian, and forming plans for the future, just as thousands have done since and will do again.

It is not our intention to follow our travellers through the various stages of their long, tiresome journey, but we will with them hasten on to the close of a mild spring afternoon, when the whole company, wearied and spiritless, drew up in front of a large, newly built log house, in the rear of which were three smaller ones. These last were for the accommodation of the negroes, who were soon scattering in every direction, in order to ascertain, as soon as possible, all the conveniences and inconveniences of their new home. It took Aunt Dillah but a short time to make up her mind that "Kentuck was an ugly-looking, out-of-the way place, the whole on't; that she wished to gracious she's back in old Virginny;" and lastly, that "she never should have come, no how, if marster hadn't of 'sisted and 'sisted, till 'twasn't in natur to 'fuse."

This assertion Aunt Dillah repeated so frequently, that she at length came to believe it herself. The old creature had no idea that she was not the main prop of her master's household, and we ourselves are inclined to think that Mrs. Wilder, unaided by Dillah's strong arm, ready tact, and encouraging words, could not well have borne the hardships and privations attending that home in the wilderness. Weary and heart-sick, she stepped from the little waggon, while an expression of sadness passed over her face as her eye wandered over the surrounding country, where tract after tract of thick woodland stretched on and still onward, to the verge of the most distant horizon.

Dillah, better than any one else, understood how to cheer her mistress, and within an hour after their arrival a crackling fire was blazing in the fire-place, while the old round iron-teakettle, or rather its contents were hissing and moaning, and telling, as plainly as tea-kettle could tell, of coming good cheer. At length the venison steaks and Dillah's short cake, smoking hot, were placed upon the old square table, and the group which shared that first supper at Glen's Creek were, with the exception of Charlie, comparatively contented. He, poor child, missed the scenes of his early home, and more than all, he missed his playmate, Ella.

Long after the hour of midnight went by, he stood by his little low window near the head of his bed, gazing up at the hosts of shining stars, and wondering if they were looking upon his dear old home, even as they looked down upon him, home-sick and lonely, afar in the wilderness of Kentucky.

Weeks passed on, and within and without Deacon Wilder's doors were signs of life and civilization. Trees were cut down, gardens were made, corn and vegetables were planted, and still no trace of an Indian had been seen, although Jake had frequently expressed a wish to get a shot at the "varmin," as he called them. Still, he felt that it would be unwise to be caught out alone at any very great distance from his master's dwelling.

This feeling was shared by all of Deacon Wilder's household except Charlie, who frequently went forth alone into the forest shade, and rambled over the hills where grew the rich wild strawberry and the fair summer flowers, and where, too, roamed the red man; for the Indian was there, jealously watching each movement of his white brother, and waiting for some provocation to strike a deadly blow. But Charlie knew it not, and fearlessly each day he plunged deeper and deeper into the depths of the woods, taking some stately tree or blighted stump as a way-mark by which to trace his homeward road, when the shadows began to grow long and dark.

Although he knew it not, Charlie had a protector, who each day, in the shady woods and wild gullies of Glen's Creek, awaited his coming. Stealthily would she follow his footsteps, and when on the velvety turf he laid him down to rest, she would watch near him, lest harm should befall the young sleeper. It was Orianna, the only and darling child of Owanno, the chieftain, whose wigwam was three miles west of Glen's Creek, near a spot called Grassy Spring.

Orianna had first been attracted toward Charlie by seeing him weep one day, and from a few words which he involuntarily let fall, she learned that his heart was not with the scenes wherein he dwelt, but was far away toward the "rising sun." Orianna's heart was full of kindly sympathy, and from the time when she first saw Charlie weeping in the forest, she made a vow to the Great Spirit that she would love and protect the child of the "pale-face." The vow thus made by the simple Indian maiden was never broken, but through weal and woe it was faithfully kept.

It was a long time ere Orianna ventured to introduce herself to her new friend; but when she did so, she was delighted to find that he neither expressed fear of her, nor surprise at her personal appearance. From that time they were inseparable, although Orianna exacted from Charlie a promise not to mention her at home, and also resisted his entreaties that she would accompany him thither. In reply to all his arguments, she would say, mournfully, "No, Charlie, no; the pale-face is the enemy of my people, although Orianna never can think they are enemies to her; and sometimes I have wished--it was wicked, I know, and the Great Spirit was angry--but I have wished that I, too, was of the fair-haired and white-browed ones."

In Charlie's home there was much wonder as to what took him so regularly to the woods but he withstood their questioning and kept his secret safely. In the wigwam, too, where Orianna dwelt, there was some grumbling at her frequent absences, but the old chieftain Owanno and his wife Narretta loved their child too well to prohibit her rambling when and where she pleased. This old couple were far on the journey of life, when Orianna came as a sunbeam of gladness to their lone cabin, and thenceforth they doted upon her as the miser doats upon his shining gold.

She was a tall, graceful creature of nineteen or twenty summers, and her life would have been one of unbounded happiness had it not been for one circumstance. Near her father's wigwam lived the young chief Wahlaga, who to a most ferocious nature added a face horridly disfigured by the many fights in which he had been foremost. A part of his nose was gone, and one eye entirely so; yet to this man had Owanno determined to wed his beautiful daughter, who looked upon Wahlaga with perfect disgust, and resolved that, sooner than marry him, she would perish in the deep waters of the Kentucky, which lay not many miles away.

The deacon and his family had now been residents at Glen's Creek nearly three months. Already was the leafy month of June verging into sultry July, when George Wilder at length found time to carry out a plan long before formed. It was to visit Marian, and if he found her all which as a child she had promised to be, he would win her for himself.

Soon after the early sun had touched the hill tops as with a blaze of fire, George mounted his favourite steed, and taking Jake with him for a companion, turned into the woods and took the lonely road to Lexington. Leaving them for a moment, we will press on and see Marian's home.

It was a large, double log building, over which the flowering honeysuckle and dark green hop-vine had been trained until they formed an effectual screen. The yard in front was large, and much taste had been displayed in the arrangement of the flowers and shrubs which were scattered through it. Several large forests had been left standing, and at one end of the yard, under a clump of honey-locusts, a limpid stream of water, now nearly dry, went dancing over the large flat limestones which lay at the bottom. In the rear of the house was the garden, which was very large, and contained several bordered walks, grassy plats, and handsome flower-beds, besides vegetables of all descriptions. At the end of the garden, and under the shadows of the woods, was a little summer-house, over which a wild grape-vine had been taught to twine its tendrils.

In this summer-house, on the morning of which we are speaking, was a beautiful young girl, Marian Gorton. We have not described her, neither do we intend to, for she was not as beautiful as heroines of stories usually are; but, reader, we will venture that she was as handsome as any person you have ever seen, for people were handsomer in those days than they are now--at least our grand-parents tell us so. Neither have we told her age, although we are sure that we have somewhere said enough on that point to have you know, by a little calculation, that Marian was now eighteen.

This morning, as she sits in the summer-house, her brow is resting on her hand, and a shadow is resting on her brow. Had Marian cause for sorrow? None except that her cousin Robert, who had recently returned from England, had that morning offered her his hand and been partially refused. Yet why should Marian refuse him whom many a proud lady in the courtly halls of England would not refuse? Did she remember one who, years ago, in the green old woods of Virginia, awakened within her childish heart a feeling which, though it might have slumbered since, was still there in all its freshness? Yes, she did remember him, although she struggled hard to conquer each feeling that was interwoven with a thought of him. Nearly three months he had been within twenty miles of her, and yet no word or message had been received, and Marian's heart swelled with resentment toward the young man, whose fleet steed even then could scarce keep pace with his master's eager wishes to press onward.

From her earliest childhood she had looked upon Robert as a brother, and now that he was offered as a husband, her heart rebelled, although pride occasionally whispered, "Do it,--marry him,--then see what George Wilder will say;" but Marian had too much good sense long to listen to the promptings of pride, and the shadow on her face is occasioned by a fear that she had remembered so long and so faithfully only to find herself uncared for and forgotten.

Meantime, the sound of horses' feet near her father's house had brought to the fence half a dozen negroes and half as many dogs, all ready in their own way to welcome the new-comers. After giving his horse in charge of the negroes, George proceeded to the house, where he was cordially received by Mrs. Gorton, who could scarcely recognize the school-boy George in the tall, fine-looking young man before her. Almost his first inquiry was for Marian. Mrs. Gorton did not know where she was, but old Sukey, who had known George in Virginia, now hobbled in, and after a few tears and a great many "Lor' bless you's," and inquiries about "old Virginny," she managed to tell him that Marian was in the garden, and that she would call her; but George prevented her, saying he would go himself.

Mr. Gorton received his young friend with great cordiality, but there was a cool haughtiness in the reception which Robert at first gave his old playmate. He suspected the nature of George's visit, nor did Marian's bright, joyous face tend in the least to allay his suspicions. But not long could he cherish feelings of resentment toward one whom he liked so well as he had George Wilder. In the course of an hour his reserve wore off, and unless George should chance to see this story,--which is doubtful,--he will probably never know how bitter were the feelings which his presence for a few moments stirred in the heart of Robert Hunting. Before George returned home, he asked Marian of her father, and also won from her a promise that, ere the frosts of winter came, her home should be with him, and by his own fireside.

Charlie, too, was delighted, and when the next day he as usual met Orianna in the woods, he led her to a mossy bank, and then communicated to her the glad tidings. When he repeated to her the name of his future sister-in-law, he was greatly surprised at seeing Orianna start quickly to her feet, while a wild light flashed from her large black eyes. Soon reseating herself, she said, calmly, "What is it, Charlie? What is the name of the white lady?"

"Marian--Marian Gorton," repeated Charlie. "Do you not think it a pretty name?"

Orianna did not answer, but sat with her small, delicate hands pressed tightly over her forehead. For a moment Charlie looked at her in wonder; then taking both her hands in his, he said, gently, "Don't feel so, Orianna. I shall love you just as well, even if I do have a sister Marian."

Orianna's only answer was, "Say her name again, Charlie."

He did so, and then Orianna repeated, "Marian--Marian--what is it? Oh, what is it? Marian;--it sounds to Orianna like music heard years and years ago."

"Perhaps it was a dream," suggested Charlie.

"It must have been," answered Orianna, "but a pleasant dream, fair as the young moon or the summer flowers. But tell me more, Charlie."

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