“ Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers, laundresses—all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a salary.
Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with Miss Lyberg. ”

“ More arrivals for the sociable; four Swedish guests, all equally gaily attired in flower hats. Some of them wore bangles, the noise of which, in the hall, sounded like an infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra—as we soon learned. It was wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door. ”

“ The slender figure of the young teacher took the place of the fallen leader, and the excitement made the house very quiet. Ralph dreaded the loss of prestige he would suffer if he should be easily spelled down. And at the moment of rising he saw in the darkest corner the figure of a well-dressed young man sitting in the shadow. Why should his evil genius haunt him? But by a strong effort he turned his attention away from Dr. Small, and listened carefully to the words which the Squire did not pronounce very distinctly, spelling them with extreme deliberation. ”

“ I came to myself with an effort. "She is the—the cook," I muttered weakly.
"We are her friends," quoth the damsel, an indignant inflection in her voice. "Kindly let us in. We've come to the Thursday sociable."
The three bedizened ladies entered without further parley and went toward the kitchen, instinctively recognizing its direction. I was amazed. I heard a noisy greeting, a peal of laughter, a confusion of tongues, and then—I groped my way back to Letitia. ”

“ Letitia's crestfallen look, following upon her perturbation, completely upset me. A wave of indignation swamped me. I advanced, and in another minute Miss Gerda Lyberg would have found herself in the hall, impelled there by a persuasive hand upon her shoulder. However, it was not to be.
"You just lay a hand on me," she said with cold deliberation, and a smile, "and I'll have you arrested for assault. Oh, I know the law. I haven't been in this country fifteen years for nothing. The law looks after poor weak, Swedish girls. Just push me out. It's all I ask. Just you push me out." ”

“ Yet, somewhere in this enormous bulk there must be hidden the modest, slender, violet-nature of a girl, whom an alien mass of earthliness has unkindly overgrown; for an English maiden in her teens, though very seldom so pretty as our own damsels, possesses, to say the truth, a certain charm of half-blossom, and delicately folded leaves, and tender womanhood, shielded by maidenly reserves, with which, somehow or other, our American girls often fail to adorn themselves during an appreciable moment. ”

“ Youth, whose soul sits on thy countenance, thyself wearing no mask, strive not to lift the masks of others! Be content with what thou seest; and wait until Time and Experience shall teach thee to find jealousy behind the sweet smile, and hatred under the honeyed word!'
"This seemed to us a dark and bitter reflection; but one or another of us recalled some illustration of human hypocrisy, and the evidences, by the simple fact of repetition, gradually led to a division of opinion,—Hollins, Shelldrake, and Miss Ringtop on the dark side, and the rest of us on the bright. ”

“ I devoutly hoped that Letitia would be able to come to terms, as the mere idea of a cook who couldn't excoriate us in English was, at that moment, delightful. At the end of a quarter of an hour I strolled back to the drawing-room. Letitia was smiling and the hand-maiden sat grim and uninspired.
"I've engaged her, Archie," said Letitia. "She knows nothing, as she has told me in the few words of English that she has picked up, but—you remember what Aunt Julia said about a clean slate." ”

“ More rarely yet than the gentleman described, one may see a white girl among the dark neighbors, whose frowsy head is uncovered, and whose sleeves are rolled up to her elbows, and who, though no doubt quite at home, looks as strange there as that pale anomaly which may sometimes be seen among a crew of blackbirds.
An air not so much of decay as of unthrift, and yet hardly of unthrift, seems to prevail in the neighborhood, which has none of the aggressive and impudent squalor of an Irish quarter, and none of the surly wickedness of a low American street. ”

“ Letitia was perfectly unruffled. She paid no attention to me whatsoever. She was fascinated with the slovenly girl, who stood around and gaped at her Swedish.
"Gerda," said Letitia, with her eyes on the book, "Gif mir apven senap och nägra potäter." And then, as Miss Lyberg dived for the drowned potatoes, Letitia exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, "She understands, Archie, she understands. I feel I am going to be a great success. Jag tackar, Gerda. That means 'I thank you,' Jag tackar. See if you can say it, Archie. Just try, dear, to oblige me. Jag tackar. ”

“ Our fighting blood was up. We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American institution, the boarding-house feeder and the [Pg 49] restaurant diner. We knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook—no lack of cook—should drive us to these abysmal depths.
Letitia made no feint at Ovid. ”

“ Wasn't it funny, Archie? What amusing experiences we shall be able to chronicle, later on!"
Letitia babbled on like half a dozen brooks, and thinking up a gentle parody, in the shape of, "cooks may come, and men may go," I decided to leave my household gods for the bread-earning contest down-town. I could not feel quite as sanguine as Letitia, who seemed to have forgotten the dismal results of the advertisement—just one little puny Swedish result. I should have preferred to make a choice. Letitia was as pleased with Gerda Lyberg as though she had been a selection instead of a that-or-nothing. ”

“ Letitia's slate-pencil coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily.
"I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That is why she is so ignorant." ”

“ Shelldrake, rocking violently in her chair, gave utterance to the peculiar clucking 'ts, ts, ts, ts,' whereby certain women express emotions too deep for words.
"Abel, roused by Hollins' question, answered, with a sudden energy:
"'Love! there is no love in the world. Where will you find it? Tell me, and I'll go there. Love! I'd like to see it! If all human hearts were like mine, we might have an Arcadia: but most men have no hearts. The world is a miserable, hollow, deceitful shell of vanity and hypocrisy. ”

“ Still not doubting the result, the Squire turned from place to place and selected all the hard words he could find. The school became utterly quiet, the excitement was too great for the ordinary buzz. Would "Meanses' Hanner" beat the master? beat the master that had laid out Jim Phillips? Everybody's sympathy was now turned to Hannah. Ralph noticed that even Shocky had deserted him, and that his face grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In fact, Ralph deserted himself. ”

“ I would not make a wanton jest here of Mrs. Johnson's anxiety to claim honor for the African color, while denying this color in many of her own family. It afforded a glimpse of the pain which all her people must endure, however proudly they hide it or light-heartedly forget it, from the despite and contumely to which they are guiltlessly born ”

“ Now there's room enough for all of us,—at least, all that can make it suit to go. Abel, you and Enos, and Pauline and Eunice might fix matters so that we could all take the place in partnership, and pass the summer together, living a true and beautiful life in the bosom of Nature. There we shall be perfectly free and untrammelled by the chains which still hang around us in Norridgeport. You know how often we have wanted to be set on some island in the Pacific Ocean, where we could build up a true society, right from the start. ”

“ And yet this writer of delicate and subtle humor, this master of tender verse, had a keen and nimble wit. An ambitious poet once sent him a poem to read entitled "Why do I live?" and Field immediately wrote back: "Because you sent your poem by mail."
Laughter is one of the best medicines in the world, and though some people would make you force it down with a spoon, there is no doubt that it is a splendid tonic and awakens the appetite for happiness. ”

“ I muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers have good appetites. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to 'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of peasant food. The result has been nil."
"It is odd," Letitia declared, a wrinkle of perplexity appearing in the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish." ”

“ Letitia's face was a psychological study. Amazement, consternation, humiliation—all seemed determined to possess her. Here was the obtuse Swede, for whose dear sake she had dallied with the intricacies of the language of Stockholm, furiously familiar with admirable English! ”

“ They try to assume something of our colder race's demeanor, but even the passer on the horse-car can see that it is not native with them, and is better pleased when they forget us, and ungenteelly laugh in encountering friends, letting their white teeth glitter through the generous lips that open to their ears. ”

“ Nothing on earth should ever induce me to visit Sweden. If it came to a choice between Hoboken and Stockholm, I mentally determined to select the former. As I paced the room I heard a curious splashing noise in the kitchen. Letitia's studies must have dulled her ears. ”

“ When she walks, her advance is elephantine. When she sits down it is on a great round space of her Maker's footstool, where she looks as if nothing could ever move her. She imposes awe and respect by the muchness of her personality, to such a degree that you probably credit her with far greater moral and intellectual force than she can fairly claim. ”

“ What a full-dress party is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-school is to Hoopole County. It is an occasion which is metaphorically inscribed with this legend: "Choose your partners." Spelling is only a blind in Hoopole County, as is dancing on Fifth Avenue. But as there are some in society who love dancing for its own sake, so in Flat Creek district there were those who loved spelling for its own sake, and who, smelling the battle from afar, had come to try their skill in this tournament, hoping to freshen the laurels they had won in their school days. ”

“ How gayly are the young ladies of this race attired, as they trip up and down the side-walks, and in and out through the pendent garments at the shop-doors! They are the black pansies and marigolds and dark-blooded dahlias among womankind. ”

“ Johnson, who had died in the West Indies, whither he voyaged for his health in quality of cook upon a Down-East schooner, was a man of letters, and had written a book to show the superiority of the black over the white branches of the human family. In this he held that, as all islands have been at their discovery found peopled by blacks, we must needs believe that humanity was first created of that color. ”

“ It had consisted of steak burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface. People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. ”

“ As he saw the fine, timid face of the girl so long oppressed flush and shine with interest; as he looked at the rather low but broad and intelligent brow and the fresh, white [Pg 150] complexion and saw the rich, womanly nature coming to the surface under the influence of applause and sympathy—he did not want to beat. If he had not felt that a victory given would insult her, he would have missed intentionally. ”

“ Why, even Evil would lose half its power!'
"There seemed to be so much practical wisdom in these views that we were all dazzled and half-convinced at the start. So, when Hollins, turning towards me, as he continued, exclaimed,—'Come, why should not this candor be adopted in our Arcadia? Will any one—will you, Enos—commence at once by telling me now—to my face—my principal faults?' I answered, after a moment's reflection,—'You have a great deal of intellectual arrogance, and you are, physically, very indolent.'
"He did not flinch from the self-invited test, though he looked a little surprised. ”