Thomas Gosson

“ GOSSE, PHILIP HENRY (1810–1888) , English naturalist, was born at Worcester on the 6th of April 1810, his father, Thomas Gosse (1765–1844) being a miniature painter. In his youth the family settled at Poole, where Gosse’s turn for natural history was noticed and encouraged by his aunt, Mrs Bell, the mother of the zoologist, Thomas Bell (1792–1880) . He had, however, little opportunity for developing it until, in 1827, he found himself clerk in a whaler’s office at Carbonear, in Newfoundland, where he beguiled the tedium of his life by observations, chiefly with the microscope. ”

“ It was not long before he became acquainted with the “wealthy family of Goose,” a branch of which he had before known in Bristol, and was shortly married to the eldest daughter.
By the record of marriages in the City Registrar’s office, it appears that in “1715, June 8, was married by Rev. Cotton Mather, Thomas Fleet to Elizabeth Goose.” The happy couple took up their residence in the same house with the printing office in Pudding lane. In due time their family was increased by the birth of a son and heir. Mother Goose, like all good grandmothers, was in ecstasies at the event ”

“ Then he gathered the little convulsed body into his arms and crooned into her ears, “There, Pappy’s baby, don’t cry! Pappy’s got you now. Nothin’ can hurt you. There, there, nothin’ shall come nigh you!”
He covered her face with tears and kisses while he whispered and soothed her to sleep. When the noon train came up from Independence, General Worth arrived. Tom had asked Gaston to telegraph for him in his name.
Tom eagerly grasped his hand. “General I knowed you’d come—you’re a man to tie to. I never knowed you to fail me in your life. You’re one of the smartest men in the world too. ”

“ All looked for a sleeping place—some in the kitchen and others in the barn or the court-yard.
"Now, Mr Thomas, it is time that we go to the dead," said the grey-headed Cossack, turning to the philosopher. All four—Spirid, Dorosch, the old Cossack, and the philosopher—betook themselves to the church, keeping off with their whips the wild dogs who roamed about the roads in great numbers and bit the sticks of passers-by in sheer malice. ”

“ This information is culled in part from the introduction to L. Frank Baum's edition of "Mother Goose" in 1897. The introduction written by Mr. Baum considered this line of reasoning and this article is referenced by him.]
This T. Fleet, according to Isaiah Thomas [*] , was a man of considerable talent and of great wit and humor. He was born in England, and was brought up in a printing office in the city of Bristol, where he afterwards worked as a journeyman. Although he was considered a man of sense, he was never thought to be overburdened with religious sentiments ”

“ Goosander, gōōs-an′dėr, n. a web-footed bird in the duck family, in the same genus as the Mergansers, a native of the Arctic regions. [Formed from goose and gander.]
Goose, gōōs, n. (pl. Geese) a web-footed animal like a duck, but larger and stronger: a tailor's smoothing-iron, from the likeness of the handle to the neck of a goose: a stupid, silly person: a game of chance once common in England, in which the players moved counters forward from one compartment on a board to another, the right to a double move being secured when the card bearing the picture of a goose was reached.—v.t. ”

“ The bankers sent that answer to Buchanan’s Secretary of the Treasury.
“Tom, you’ve lifted me out of the dumps. I owe you a doctor’s fee,” cried Gaston with enthusiasm as he placed Flora back on the grass and started to his office.
“All I charge you is to come again. The old man’s proud of his young friend. You make me feel like I’m somebody in the old world after all. And some day when you’re great and rich and famous and the world’s full of your name, I ’ll tell folks I know you like my own boy, and I ’ll brag about how many times you used to come to see me.” ”

“ Gaston walked into the hall and met Sallie as she emerged from the library door opposite. He tried to say something, but his throat was dry and his tongue paralysed with the wonder of her presence! Besides, the General stood grimly by like a guard over a life prisoner.
He looked searchingly into her eyes as he held her hand for a moment and felt its warm impulsive pressure. Oh! the eyes of the woman we love! What are words to their language of melting tenderness, of faith and longing. Gaston felt like shouting in the General’s face his triumph. ”

“ Gaston started as Tom uttered the last sentence.
“With you, boy, it’s all plain sailin’. You’re the best looking chap in the county. I was a dandy when I was young. It does me good to look at you if you don’t care nothin’ about fine clothes. Then you’re as sharp as a razor. There ain’t a man in No’th Caliny that can stand up agin you on the stump. I’ve heard ’em all. You ’ll be the Governor of this state.”
That was always the climax of Tom’s prophetic flattery. He could think of no grander end of a human life than to crown it in the Governor’s Palace of North Carolina. ”

“ Tom had pulled the Preacher down on the seat beside him while he said this.
“The dark days have only begun, Tom. I’ve come to see you to have you cheer me up. Somehow you always seemed to me to be closer to God than any man in the church. You will need all your faith now. It seems to me that every second woman I know is a widow. Hundreds of families have no seed even to plant, no horses to work crops, no men who will work if they had horses. What are we to do? I see hungry children in every house.” ”

“ She don’t seem any more afraid of ’em than she is of a cat.”
“I don’t believe anybody would hurt Flora, Tom,—she’s such a little angel,” said Gaston kissing the tears from the child’s face.
“She is cute—ain’t she?” said Tom with pride. “I’ve wished many a time lately I’d gone out West with them Yankee fellers that took such a likin’ to me in the war. They told me that a poor white man had a chance out there, and that there wern’t a nigger in twenty miles of their home. ”

“ CHAPTER XII—THE SPLENDOUR OF SHAMELESS LOVE WHEN Gaston received her telegram in jail he was seated by a window looking out through the bars on Mt. Pisgah’s distant peak looming in grandeur amid a sea of smaller blue mountain waves. He read the message and his soul was filled with a great peace.
“At last! at last! These prison bars, they are good! I could kiss them. I can never be grateful enough to my enemies!” ”

“ She couldn't remember the time she had not known and loved Tom. Love filled the universe, past, present and future. There was no task too hard for her hands, no danger she was not ready to meet. The hungry heart had found its own.
Through the long hours of the day she waited without impatience. Each tick of the tiny clock on the mantel brought him nearer. The hands couldn't turn back! She watched them with a smile as she sat in the gathering twilight. ”

“ The woman did not cheat him, and Thomas knew enough of life to respect her for this remarkable honesty; she was simply an ailing, lachrymose slut, incapable of effort. Her son, a lad who had failed in several employments from sheer feebleness of mind and body, practically owed his subsistence to Thomas Bird, whose good offices had at length established the poor fellow at a hairdresser's. To sit frequently for an hour at a time, as Thomas did, listening with attention to Mrs. Batty's talk of her own and her son's ailments, was in itself a marvel of charity. ”

“ Goss′amery, like gossamer: flimsy. [M. E. gossomer; Prof Skeat thinks it is a corr. of 'goose-summer' or 'summer-goose,' from the downy appearance of the film. Ger. sommer-fäden, summer-threads, also mädchen-sommer, maiden-summer.]
Gossan, gos′an, n. (prov.) decomposed rock, usually ferruginous, forming the upper part of a metallic vein.—Also Gozz′an.
Gossip, gos′ip, n. one who runs about telling and hearing news: idle talk: a familiar acquaintance: a boon-companion.—v.i. to run about telling idle tales: to talk much: to chat: (Shak.) to stand godfather to.—n. ”

“ The General’s a rough man, if you rub his fur the wrong way, but his heart’s all right. He’s all gold I tell you!”
“Well, I’m in for a tussle with him, Tom.”
“Shucks, man, you can beat him with one hand tied behind you if you’ve got his gal’s heart. She’s got his fire, and a gal as purty as she is can just about do what she pleases in this world.”
“I hope she can bring him around. I like the General. I’d much rather not fight him.”
“Where’s Flora?” cried Tom looking around in alarm.
“I saw her going toward the spring in the edge of the woods there a minute ago,” replied Gaston. ”

“ It is possible to kill the human body with an idea. The fairest day the spring ever sent can be blackened and turned from sunshine into storm by the flitting of a little cloud of thought no bigger than a man’s hand.
So Gaston found this report of dancing and flirting in a gay society by the woman whom he had enthroned in the holy of holies of his soul to be destroying his strength of character, and like a deadly cancer eating his heart out.
He sat down by his window that night, unable to work, and tried to reconcile such a life with his ideal. ”

“ Tom laughed and seized his arm:
"Oh, don't be a fool! There's no danger."
"Nasah—I knows dey's no danger—but"—he glanced over his shoulder to be sure that the master hadn't come down stairs—"but yer know de ole sayin' is dat indiscretion is de better part er value——"
"I see!" Tom smiled in perfect agreement.
"An' I des has er little indiscretion——"
"Oh, you make me tired, how can I help a coward?"
Andy looked grieved:
"Lordy, Mister Tom—don't say dat, sah. I ain't [Pg 264] no coward—I'se des cautious. Ye know I wuz in dat fus' battle er Bull's Run wid de major. ”

“ Tom broke into a laugh:
"Well, she can't take you by force."
"I don't know 'bout dat, sah. When any 'oman gits her min' sot she's dangous. But when a 'oman big an' black es she make up her min'!"
"Black!" Tom cried, squaring himself and looking Andy over: "Aren't you just a little shady?"
"Who? Me?—nasah! I ain't no black nigger!"
"No?"
"Nasah! I'se what dey calls er tantalizin' brown!"
"Oh, I see!"
"Yassah, I'se er chocolate-colored gemman—an' I nebber could stan' dese here coal-black niggers. Miss Minerva's so black she kin spit ink!" ”

“ You promised to join me on the porch. Don’t change that part of the programme. I will talk to your mother until you come.”
Gaston went down stairs treading on air. He sought her mother and devoted himself to her with supreme tact. He discovered her tastes and prejudices and paid her that knightly deference some young men express easily and naturally to their elders. He had always been a favourite with old people. He prided himself on it. This faculty he regarded as a badge of honour. As he sat there and talked with this frail little woman, his heart went out to her in a great yearning love. ”

“ Let me kiss you again.”
The keeper of the jail treated Gaston with every consideration and arranged for the marriage to take place in the little sitting room where he allowed him to come on parole.
The bride wore a plain travelling dress in which she had come from New York. She had driven from the depot past Stella Holt’s home, and with her straight to the jail.
Gaston thought her the fairest vision that ever greeted the eye of man as he stood by her side; for he had seen that day the soul of a radiantly beautiful woman in the splendour of shameless love. ”

“ Hugh Gosselin asked, with a laugh; and the inquiry undertaken by his mother occupied them for the moment, demanding a subtlety of treatment from which they were not conscious of shrinking, of which rather they had an idea that they were perhaps exceptionally capable. They came back to the temperate view that Guy would never put himself out, would probably never do anything great, but might show himself all the same a delightful member of society. ”

“ The editor of the new edition of Mother Goose's Melodies knows much more about the curious history of the Boston edition than I do. And the reader will not need, even in these lines of mine, any light on the curious question about Madam Vergoose, or her son-in-law Mr. Fleet, or the Contes de Ma Mere l'Oye, which are so carefully discussed in the preface. All this is admirably discussed also in Mr. William Whitmore's paper published in Albany in 1889, and reprinted in Boston in 1892. In that paper he reproduced in facsimile Isaiah Thomas's edition of Mother Goose published first in 1785. ”

“ Don’t you know that I will disinherit her if she marries without my consent?”
“You can’t frighten me on that tack,” answered Gaston firmly. “No dollar mark has yet been placed on the doors of Southern society. Manhood, character and achievement are the keys that unlock it. You know that, and I now it. I was poorer and more obscure the day you first invited me here than to-day. And yet you gave me as hearty a welcome as her richest suitor. All I ask is time to prove to you in my life my manhood and worth,—one year, two years, five years, ten years, any time you see fit to name.” ”

“ You are dreaming about your bride.”
Gaston quickly lowered his eyes, and saw the messenger boy who had been standing several minutes with his telegram.
He read Sallie’s message with amazement.
“What can that mean?” He handed the telegram to the Preacher.
“It means he has discovered the facts, and there is going to be trouble. He is a man of terrific passions when his pride is roused.”
“I must go immediately.”
He closed his office and caught his train after a hard drive. When he reached Independence he sprang into a carriage and ordered the driver to take him direct to Oakwood. ”