第29章

--Why, she listens to my stories, to begin with, as if she really liked to hear them.And then you know I am dreadfully troubled now and then with some of my characters, and can't think how to get rid of them.And she'll say, perhaps, Don't shoot your villain this time, you've shot three or four already in the last six weeks; let his mare stumble and throw him and break his neck.Or she'll give me a hint about some new way for my lover to make a declaration.She must have had a good many offers, it's my belief, for she has told me a dozen different ways for me to use in my stories.And whenever Iread a story to her, she always laughs and cries in the right places;and that's such a comfort, for there are some people that think everything pitiable is so funny, and will burst out laughing when poor Rip Van Winkle--you've seen Mr.Jefferson, haven't you?--is breaking your heart for you if you have one.Sometimes she takes a poem I have written and reads it to me so beautifully, that I fall in love with it, and sometimes she sets my verses to music and sings them to me.

--You have a laugh together sometimes, do you?

--Indeed we do.I write for what they call the "Comic Department" of the paper now and then.If I did not get so tired of story-telling, I suppose I should be gayer than I am; but as it is, we two get a little fun out of my comic pieces.I begin them half-crying sometimes, but after they are done they amuse me.I don't suppose my comic pieces are very laughable; at any rate the man who makes a business of writing me down says the last one I wrote is very melancholy reading, and that if it was only a little better perhaps some bereaved person might pick out a line or two that would do to put on a gravestone.

--Well, that is hard, I must confess.Do let me see those lines which excite such sad emotions.

--Will you read them very good-naturedly? If you will, I will get the paper that has "Aunt Tabitha." That is the one the fault-finder said produced such deep depression of feeling.It was written for the "Comic Department." Perhaps it will make you cry, but it was n't meant to.

--I will finish my report this time with our Scheherezade's poem, hoping that--any critic who deals with it will treat it with the courtesy due to all a young lady's literary efforts.

AUNT TABITHA.

Whatever I do, and whatever I say, Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn't the way;When she was a girl (forty summers ago)

Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.

Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice!

But I like my own way, and I find it so nice!

And besides, I forget half the things I am told;But they all will come back to me--when I am old.

If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt, He may chance to look in as I chance to look out;She would never endure an impertinent stare, It is horrid, she says, and I mustn't sit there.

A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own, But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone;So I take a lad's arm,--just for safety, you know, But Aunt Tabitha tells me they didn't do so.

How wicked we are, and how good they were then!

They kept at arm's length those detestable men;What an era of virtue she lived in!--But stay Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day?

If the men were so wicked, I'll ask my papa How he dared to propose to my darling mamma;Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! Who knows And what shall I say if a wretch should propose ?

I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin, What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been!

And her grand-aunt--it scares me--how shockingly sad.

That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!

A martyr will save us, and nothing else can;Let me perish--to rescue some wretched young man!

Though when to the altar a victim I go, Aunt Tabitha'll tell me she never did so!