Twice-Told Tales (41 page)

"Have you done much for the improvement of the city?" asked the New
Year. "Judging from what little I have seen, it appears to be ancient
and time-worn."

"I have opened the railroad," said the elder Year, "and half a dozen
times a day you will hear the bell which once summoned the monks of a
Spanish convent to their devotions announcing the arrival or departure
of the cars. Old Salem now wears a much livelier expression than when
I first beheld her. Strangers rumble down from Boston by hundreds at a
time. New faces throng in Essex street. Railroad-hacks and omnibuses
rattle over the pavements. There is a perceptible increase of
oyster-shops and other establishments for the accommodation of a
transitory diurnal multitude. But a more important change awaits the
venerable town. An immense accumulation of musty prejudices will be
carried off by the free circulation of society. A peculiarity of
character of which the inhabitants themselves are hardly sensible will
be rubbed down and worn away by the attrition of foreign substances.
Much of the result will be good; there will likewise be a few things
not so good. Whether for better or worse, there will be a probable
diminution of the moral influence of wealth, and the sway of an
aristocratic class which from an era far beyond my memory has held
firmer dominion here than in any other New England town."

The Old Year, having talked away nearly all of her little remaining
breath, now closed her book of chronicles, and was about to take her
departure, but her sister detained her a while longer by inquiring the
contents of the huge bandbox which she was so painfully lugging along
with her.

"These are merely a few trifles," replied the Old Year, "which I have
picked up in my rambles and am going to deposit in the receptacle of
things past and forgotten. We sisterhood of years never carry anything
really valuable out of the world with us. Here are patterns of most of
the fashions which I brought into vogue, and which have already lived
out their allotted term; you will supply their place with others
equally ephemeral. Here, put up in little china pots, like rouge, is a
considerable lot of beautiful women's bloom which the disconsolate
fair ones owe me a bitter grudge for stealing. I have likewise a
quantity of men's dark hair, instead of which I have left gray locks
or none at all. The tears of widows and other afflicted mortals who
have received comfort during the last twelve months are preserved in
some dozens of essence-bottles well corked and sealed. I have several
bundles of love-letters eloquently breathing an eternity of burning
passion which grew cold and perished almost before the ink was dry.
Moreover, here is an assortment of many thousand broken promises and
other broken ware, all very light and packed into little space. The
heaviest articles in my possession are a large parcel of disappointed
hopes which a little while ago were buoyant enough to have inflated
Mr. Lauriat's balloon."

"I have a fine lot of hopes here in my basket," remarked the New Year.
"They are a sweet-smelling flower—a species of rose."

"They soon lose their perfume," replied the sombre Old Year. "What
else have you brought to insure a welcome from the discontented race
of mortals?"

"Why, to say the truth, little or nothing else," said her sister, with
a smile, "save a few new
Annuals
and almanacs, and some New Year's
gifts for the children. But I heartily wish well to poor mortals, and
mean to do all I can for their improvement and happiness."

"It is a good resolution," rejoined the Old Year. "And, by the way, I
have a plentiful assortment of good resolutions which have now grown
so stale and musty that I am ashamed to carry them any farther. Only
for fear that the city authorities would send Constable Mansfield with
a warrant after me, I should toss them into the street at once. Many
other matters go to make up the contents of my bandbox, but the whole
lot would not fetch a single bid even at an auction of worn-out
furniture; and as they are worth nothing either to you or anybody
else, I need not trouble you with a longer catalogue."

"And must I also pick up such worthless luggage in my travels?" asked
the New Year.

"Most certainly, and well if you have no heavier load to bear,"
replied the other. "And now, my dear sister, I must bid you farewell,
earnestly advising and exhorting you to expect no gratitude nor
good-will from this peevish, unreasonable, inconsiderate,
ill-intending and worse-behaving world. However warmly its inhabitants
may seem to welcome you, yet, do what you may and lavish on them what
means of happiness you please, they will still be complaining, still
craving what it is not in your power to give, still looking forward to
some other year for the accomplishment of projects which ought never
to have been formed, and which, if successful, would only provide new
occasions of discontent. If these ridiculous people ever see anything
tolerable in you, it will be after you are gone for ever."

"But I," cried the fresh-hearted New Year—"I shall try to leave men
wiser than I find them. I will offer them freely whatever good gifts
Providence permits me to distribute, and will tell them to be thankful
for what they have and humbly hopeful for more; and surely, if they
are not absolute fools, they will condescend to be happy, and will
allow me to be a happy year. For my happiness must depend on them."

"Alas for you, then, my poor sister!" said the Old Year, sighing, as
she uplifted her burden. "We grandchildren of Time are born to
trouble. Happiness, they say, dwells in the mansions of eternity, but
we can only lead mortals thither step by step with reluctant
murmurings, and ourselves must perish on the threshold. But hark! my
task is done."

The clock in the tall steeple of Dr. Emerson's church struck twelve;
there was a response from Dr. Flint's, in the opposite quarter of the
city; and while the strokes were yet dropping into the air the Old
Year either flitted or faded away, and not the wisdom and might of
angels, to say nothing of the remorseful yearnings of the millions who
had used her ill, could have prevailed with that departed year to
return one step. But she, in the company of Time and all her kindred,
must hereafter hold a reckoning with mankind. So shall it be,
likewise, with the maidenly New Year, who, as the clock ceased to
strike, arose from the steps of the city-hall and set out rather
timorously on her earthly course.

"A happy New Year!" cried a watchman, eying her figure very
questionably, but without the least suspicion that he was addressing
the New Year in person.

"Thank you kindly," said the New Year; and she gave the watchman one
of the roses of hope from her basket. "May this flower keep a sweet
smell long after I have bidden you good-bye!"

Then she stepped on more briskly through the silent streets, and such
as were awake at the moment heard her footfall and said, "The New Year
is come!" Wherever there was a knot of midnight roisterers, they
quaffed her health. She sighed, however, to perceive that the air was
tainted—as the atmosphere of this world must continually be—with the
dying breaths of mortals who had lingered just long enough for her to
bury them. But there were millions left alive to rejoice at her
coming, and so she pursued her way with confidence, strewing
emblematic flowers on the doorstep of almost every dwelling, which
some persons will gather up and wear in their bosoms, and others will
trample under foot. The carrier-boy can only say further that early
this morning she filled his basket with New Year's addresses, assuring
him that the whole city, with our new mayor and the aldermen and
common council at its head, would make a general rush to secure
copies. Kind patrons, will not you redeem the pledge of the New Year?

There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning, and through the
partially-frosted window-panes I love to watch the gradual beginning
of the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the
air and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on
the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the
atmosphere. These are not the big flakes heavy with moisture which
melt as they touch the ground and are portentous of a soaking rain. It
is to be in good earnest a wintry storm. The two or three people
visible on the sidewalks have an aspect of endurance, a blue-nosed,
frosty fortitude, which is evidently assumed in anticipation of a
comfortless and blustering day. By nightfall—or, at least, before the
sun sheds another glimmering smile upon us—the street and our little
garden will be heaped with mountain snowdrifts. The soil, already
frozen for weeks past, is prepared to sustain whatever burden may be
laid upon it, and to a Northern eye the landscape will lose its
melancholy bleakness and acquire a beauty of its own when Mother
Earth, like her children, shall have put on the fleecy garb of her
winter's wear. The cloud-spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle.
As yet, indeed, there is barely a rime like hoar-frost over the brown
surface of the street; the withered green of the grass-plat is still
discernible, and the slated roofs of the houses do but begin to look
gray instead of black. All the snow that has yet fallen within the
circumference of my view, were it heaped up together, would hardly
equal the hillock of a grave. Thus gradually by silent and stealthy
influences are great changes wrought. These little snow-particles
which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls through the air will bury
the great Earth under their accumulated mass, nor permit her to behold
her sister Sky again for dreary months. We likewise shall lose sight
of our mother's familiar visage, and must content ourselves with
looking heavenward the oftener.

Now, leaving the Storm to do his appointed office, let us sit down,
pen in hand, by our fireside. Gloomy as it may seem, there is an
influence productive of cheerfulness and favorable to imaginative
thought in the atmosphere of a snowy day. The native of a Southern
clime may woo the Muse beneath the heavy shade of summer foliage
reclining on banks of turf, while the sound of singing-birds and
warbling rivulets chimes in with the music of his soul. In our brief
summer I do not think, but only exist in the vague enjoyment of a
dream. My hour of inspiration—if that hour ever comes—is when the
green log hisses upon the hearth, and the bright flame, brighter for
the gloom of the chamber, rustles high up the chimney, and the coals
drop tinkling down among the growing heaps of ashes. When the casement
rattles in the gust and the snowflakes or the sleety raindrops pelt
hard against the window-panes, then I spread out my sheet of paper
with the certainty that thoughts and fancies will gleam forth upon it
like stars at twilight or like violets in May, perhaps to fade as
soon. However transitory their glow, they at least shine amid the
darksome shadow which the clouds of the outward sky fling through the
room. Blessed, therefore, and reverently welcomed by me, her true-born
son, be New England's winter, which makes us one and all the nurslings
of the storm and sings a familiar lullaby even in the wildest shriek
of the December blast. Now look we forth again and see how much of his
task the storm-spirit has done.

Slow and sure! He has the day—perchance the week—before him, and may
take his own time to accomplish Nature's burial in snow. A smooth
mantle is scarcely yet thrown over the withered grass-plat, and the
dry stalks of annuals still thrust themselves through the white
surface in all parts of the garden. The leafless rose-bushes stand
shivering in a shallow snowdrift, looking, poor things! as
disconsolate as if they possessed a human consciousness of the dreary
scene. This is a sad time for the shrubs that do not perish with the
summer. They neither live nor die; what they retain of life seems but
the chilling sense of death. Very sad are the flower-shrubs in
midwinter. The roofs of the houses are now all white, save where the
eddying wind has kept them bare at the bleak corners. To discern the
real intensity of the storm, we must fix upon some distant object—as
yonder spire—and observe how the riotous gust fights with the
descending snow throughout the intervening space. Sometimes the entire
prospect is obscured; then, again, we have a distinct but transient
glimpse of the tall steeple, like a giant's ghost; and now the dense
wreaths sweep between, as if demons were flinging snowdrifts at each
other in mid-air. Look next into the street, where we have an amusing
parallel to the combat of those fancied demons in the upper regions.
It is a snow-battle of schoolboys. What a pretty satire on war and
military glory might be written in the form of a child's story by
describing the snow-ball fights of two rival schools, the alternate
defeats and victories of each, and the final triumph of one party, or
perhaps of neither! What pitched battles worthy to be chanted in
Homeric strains! What storming of fortresses built all of massive
snow-blocks! What feats of individual prowess and embodied onsets of
martial enthusiasm! And when some well-contested and decisive victory
had put a period to the war, both armies should unite to build a lofty
monument of snow upon the battlefield and crown it with the victor's
statue hewn of the same frozen marble. In a few days or weeks
thereafter the passer-by would observe a shapeless mound upon the
level common, and, unmindful of the famous victory, would ask, "How
came it there? Who reared it? And what means it?" The shattered
pedestal of many a battle-monument has provoked these questions when
none could answer.

Turn we again to the fireside and sit musing there, lending our ears
to the wind till perhaps it shall seem like an articulate voice and
dictate wild and airy matter for the pen. Would it might inspire me to
sketch out the personification of a New England winter! And that idea,
if I can seize the snow-wreathed figures that flit before my fancy,
shall be the theme of the next page.