第63章

refusing a small favor asked of me, - nothing more than telling what had happened at school one morning.No matter who asked it;but there were circumstances which saddened and awed me.I had no heart to speak; - I faltered some miserable, perhaps petulant excuse, stole away, and the first battle of life was lost.What remorse followed I need not tell.Then and there, to the best of my knowledge, I first consciously took Sin by the hand and turned my back on Duty.Time has led me to look upon my offence more leniently; I do not believe it or any other childish wrong is infinite, as some have pretended, but infinitely finite.Yet, oh if I had but won that battle!

The great Destroyer, whose awful shadow it was that had silenced me, came near me, - but never, so as to be distinctly seen and remembered, during my tender years.There flits dimly before me the image of a little girl, whose name even I have forgotten, a schoolmate, whom we missed one day, and were told that she had died.But what death was I never had any very distinct idea, until one day I climbed the low stone wall of the old burial-ground and mingled with a group that were looking into a very deep, long, narrow hole, dug down through the green sod, down through the brown loam, down through the yellow gravel, and there at the bottom was an oblong red box, and a still, sharp, white face of a young man seen through an opening at one end of it.When the lid was closed, and the gravel and stones rattled down pell-mell, and the woman in black, who was crying and wringing her hands, went off with the other mourners, and left him, then I felt that I had seen Death, and should never forget him.

One other acquaintance I made at an earlier period of life than the habit of romancers authorizes.- Love, of course.- She was a famous beauty afterwards.- I am satisfied that many children rehearse their parts in the drama of life before they have shed all their milk-teeth.- I think I won't tell the story of the golden blonde.- I suppose everybody has had his childish fancies; but sometimes they are passionate impulses, which anticipate all the tremulous emotions belonging to a later period.Most children remember seeing and adoring an angel before they were a dozen years old.

[The old gentleman had left his chair opposite and taken a seat by the schoolmistress and myself, a little way from the table.- It's true, it's true, - said the old gentleman.- He took hold of a steel watch-chain, which carried a large, square gold key at one end and was supposed to have some kind of time-keeper at the other.

With some trouble he dragged up an ancient-looking, thick, silver, bull's-eye watch.He looked at it for a moment, - hesitated, -touched the inner corner of his right eye with the pulp of his middle finger, - looked at the face of the watch, - said it was getting into the forenoon, - then opened the watch and handed me the loose outside case without a word.- The watch-paper had been pink once, and had a faint tinge still, as if all its tender life had not yet quite faded out.Two little birds, a flower, and, in small school-girl letters, a date, - 17..- no matter.- Before Iwas thirteen years old, - said the old gentleman.- I don't know what was in that young schoolmistress's head, nor why she should have done it; but she took out the watch-paper and put it softly to her lips, as if she were kissing the poor thing that made it so long ago.The old gentleman took the watch-paper carefully from her, replaced it, turned away and walked out, holding the watch in his hand.I saw him pass the window a moment after with that foolish white hat on his head; he couldn't have been thinking what he was about when he put it on.So the schoolmistress and I were left alone.I drew my chair a shade nearer to her, and continued.]

And since I am talking of early recollections, I don't know why Ishouldn't mention some others that still cling to me, - not that you will attach any very particular meaning to these same images so full of significance to me, but that you will find something parallel to them in your own memory.You remember, perhaps, what Isaid one day about smells.There were certain SOUNDS also which had a mysterious suggestiveness to me, - not so intense, perhaps, as that connected with the other sense, but yet peculiar, and never to be forgotten.

The first was the creaking of the wood-sleds, bringing their loads of oak and walnut from the country, as the slow-swinging oxen trailed them along over the complaining snow, in the cold, brown light of early morning.Lying in bed and listening to their dreary music had a pleasure in it akin to the Lucretian luxury, or that which Byron speaks of as to be enjoyed in looking on at a battle by one "who hath no friend, no brother there."There was another sound, in itself so sweet, and so connected with one of those simple and curious superstitions of childhood of which I have spoken, that I can never cease to cherish a sad sort of love for it.- Let me tell the superstitious fancy first.The Puritan "Sabbath," as everybody knows, began at "sundown" on Saturday evening.To such observance of it I was born and bred.As the large, round disk of day declined, a stillness, a solemnity, a somewhat melancholy hush came over us all.It was time for work to cease, and for playthings to be put away.The world of active life passed into the shadow of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun should sink again beneath the horizon.

It was in this stillness of the world without and of the soul within that the pulsating lullaby of the evening crickets used to make itself most distinctly heard, - so that I well remember I used to think that the purring of these little creatures, which mingled with the batrachian hymns from the neighboring swamp, WAS PECULIARTO SATURDAY EVENINGS.I don't know that anything could give a clearer idea of the quieting and subduing effect of the old habit of observance of what was considered holy time, than this strange, childish fancy.