Constance Fenimore Woolson
Constance Fenimore Woolson
CONSTANCE
FENIMORE WOOLSON
COLLECTED STORIES
Anne Boyd Rioux, editor
LIBRARY OF AMERICA E-BOOK CLASSICS
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
Volume compilation, notes, and chronology copyright © 2020 by
Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, N.Y.
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Published in the United States by Library of America.
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and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Ltd.
eISBN 978–1–59853–651–5
Contents
FROM Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches
“Peter the Parson”
“Jeannette”
“Solomon”
“Wilhelmina”
“St. Clair Flats”
“The Lady of Little Fishing”
FROM Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches
“Rodman the Keeper”
“Sister St. Luke”
“Miss Elisabetha”
“Old Gardiston”
“The South Devil”
“In the Cotton Country”
“Felipa”
“King David”
FROM The Front Yard and Other Italian Stories
“The Front Yard”
“A Pink Villa”
“The Street of the Hyacinth”
FROM Dorothy and Other Italian Stories
“Dorothy”
“A Transplanted Boy”
“A Florentine Experiment”
“At the Château of Corinne”
Uncollected Stories
“‘Miss Grief’”
“In Sloane Street”
Chronology
Note on the Texts
Notes
FROM
CASTLE NOWHERE:
LAKE-COUNTRY SKETCHES
Contents
“Peter the Parson”
“Jeannette”
“Solomon”
“Wilhelmina”
“St. Clair Flats”
“The Lady of Little Fishing”
Peter the Parson
* * *
IN November, 1850, a little mining settlement stood forlornly on the shore of Lake Superior. A log-dock ran out into the dark water; a roughly built furnace threw a glare against the dark sky; several stamping-mills kept up their monotonous tramping day and night; and evil-minded saloons beset the steps on all sides. Back into the pine forest ran the white-sand road leading to the mine, and on the right were clustered the houses, which were scarcely better than shanties, although adorned with sidling porches and sham-windowed fronts. Winter begins early in these high latitudes. Navigation was still open, for a scow with patched sails was coming slowly up the bay; but the air was cold, and the light snow of the preceding night clung unmelted on the north side of the trees. The pine forest had been burned away to make room for the village; blackened stumps rose everywhere in the weedy streets, and, on the outskirts of the clearing, grew into tall skeletons, bleached white without, but black and charred within,—a desolate framing for a desolate picture. Everything was bare, jagged, and unfinished; each poor house showed hasty makeshifts,—no doors latched, no windows fitted. Pigs were the principal pedestrians. At four o’clock this cold November afternoon, the saloons, with their pine fires and red curtains, were by far the most cheerful spots in the landscape, and their ruddy invitations to perdition were not counterbalanced by a single opposing gleam, until the Rev. Herman Peters prepared his chapel for vespers.
Herman Warriner Peters was a slender little man, whose blue eyes, fair hair, and unbearded face misled the observer into the idea of extreme youth. There was a boyishness in his air, or, rather, lack of air, and a nervous timidity in his manner, which stamped him as a person of no importance,—one of those men who, not of sufficient consequence to be disliked, are simply ignored by a well-bred world, which pardons anything rather than insignificance. And if ignored by a well-bred world, what by an ill-bred? Society at Algonquin was worse than ill-bred, inasmuch as it had never been bred at all. Like all mining settlements, it esteemed physical strength the highest good, and next to that an undaunted demeanor and flowing vocabulary, designated admiringly as “powerful sassy.” Accordingly it made unlimited fun of the Rev. Herman Warriner Peters, and derived much enjoyment from calling him “Peter,” pretending to think it was his real name, and solemnly persisting in the mistake in spite of all the painstaking corrections of the unsuspecting little man.
The Rev. Herman wrapped himself in his thin old cloak and twisted a comforter around his little throat, as the clock warned him of the hour. He was not leaving much comfort behind him; the room was dreary and bare, without carpet, fire, or easy-chair. A cot-bed, which sagged hopelessly, a wash-bowl set on a dry-goods box, flanked by a piece of bar-soap and a crash towel, a few pegs on the cracked wall, one wooden chair and his own little trunk, completed the furniture. The Rev. Herman boarded with Mrs. Malone, and ate her streaked biscuit and fried meat without complaint. The woman could rise to yeast and a gridiron when the surveyors visited Algonquin, or when the directors of the iron company came up in the summer; but the streaked biscuit and fried steak were “good enough for the little parson, bless him!”
There were some things in the room, however, other than furniture, namely, a shelf full of religious books, a large and appalling picture of the crucifixion, and a cross six feet in height, roughly made of pine saplings, and fixed to the floor in a wooden block. There was also a small colored picture, with the words “Santa Margarita” inscribed beneath. The picture stood on a bracket fashioned of shingles, and below it hung a poor little vase filled with the last colored leaves.
“Ye only want the Howly Vargin now, to be all right, yer riverence,” said Mrs. Malone, who was, in name at least, a Roman Catholic.
“All honor and affection are, no doubt, due to the Holy Mary,” answered the Rev. Herman, nervously; “but the Anglican Church does not—at present—allow her claim to—to adoration.” And he sighed.
“Why don’t yer jest come right out now, and be a rale Catholic?” said Mrs. Malone, with a touch of sympathy. “You ’re next door to it, and it ’s aisy to see yer ain’t happy in yer mind. If yer was a rale praste, now, with the coat and all, ’stead of being a make-believe, the boys ud respect yer more, and would n’t notice yer soize so much. Or yer might go back to the cities (for I don’t deny they do loike a big fist up here), and loikely enough yer could find aisy work there that ud suit yer.”
“I like hard work, Mrs. Malone,” said the little parson.
“But you ’re not fit for it, sir. You ’ll niver get on here if yer stay till judgment day. Why, yer ain’t got ten people, all told, belongin’ to yer chapel, and you ’re here a year already!”
The Rev. Herman sighed again, but made no answer. He sighed now as he left his cold room and stepped out into the cold street. The wind blew as he made his way along between the stumps, carefully going round the pigs, who had selected the best places for their siestas. He held down his comforter with one bare hand; the other clutched the end of a row of bo
oks, which filled his thin arm from the shoulder down. He limped as he walked. An ankle had been cruelly injured some months previously; the wound had healed, but he was left permanently and awkwardly lame. At the time, the dastardly injury had roused a deep bitterness in the parson’s heart, for grace and activity had been his one poor little bodily gift, his one small pride. The activity had returned, not the grace. But he had learned to limp bravely along, and the bitterness had passed away.
Lights shone comfortably from the Pine-Cone Saloon as he passed.
“Hallo! Here ’s Peter the Parson,” sang out a miner, standing at the door; and forth streamed all the loungers to look at him.
“Say, Peter, come in and have a drop to warm yer,” said one.
“Look at his poor little ribs, will yer?” said another, as his cloak blew out like a sail.
“Let him alone! He ’s going to have his preaching all to himself, as usual,” said a third. “Them books is all the congregation he can get, poor little chap!”
The parson’s sensitive ears heard every word. He quickened his steps, and, with his usual nervous awkwardness, stumbled and fell, dropping all the books, amid the jeering applause of the bystanders. Silently he rose and began collecting his load, the wind every now and then blowing his cloak over his head as he stooped, and his difficulties increased by the occasional gift of a potato full in the breast, and a flood of witty commentaries from the laughing group at the saloon door. As he picked up the last volume and turned away, a missile, deftly aimed, took off his hat, and sent it over a fence into a neighboring field. The parson hesitated; but as a small boy had already given chase, not to bring it back, but to send it further away, he abandoned the hat,—his only one,—and walked on among the stumps bareheaded, his thin hair blown about by the raw wind, and his blue eyes reddened with cold and grief.
The Episcopal Church of St. John and St. James was a rough little building, with recess-chancel, ill-set Gothic windows, and a half-finished tower. It owed its existence to the zeal of a director’s wife, who herself embroidered its altar-cloth and bookmarks, and sent thither the artificial flowers and candles which she dared not suggest at home; the poor Indians, at least, should not be deprived of them! The director’s wife died, but left by will a pittance of two hundred dollars per annum towards the rector’s salary. In her fancy she saw Algonquin a thriving town, whose inhabitants believed in the Anglican succession, and sent their children to Sunday school. In reality, Algonquin remained a lawless mining settlement, whose inhabitants believed in nothing, and whose children hardly knew what Sunday meant, unless it was more whiskey than usual. The two hundred dollars and the chapel, however, remained fixed facts; and the Eastern directors, therefore, ordered a picturesque church to be delineated on their circulars, and themselves constituted a non-resident vestry. One or two young missionaries had already tried the field, failed, and gone away; but the present incumbent, who had equally tried and equally failed, remained.
On this occasion he unlocked the door and entered the little sanctuary. It was cold and dark, but he made no fire, for there was neither stove nor hearth. Lighting two candles,—one for the congregation and one for himself,—he distributed the books among the benches and the chancel, and dusted carefully the little altar, with its faded embroideries and flowers. Then he retired into the shed which served as a vestry-room, and in a few minutes issued forth, clad in his robes of office, and knelt at the chancel rail. There was no bell to summon the congregation, and no congregation to summon; but still he began in his clear voice, “Dearly beloved brethren,” and continued on unwavering through the Confession, the Absolution, and the Psalms, leaving a silence for the corresponding responses, and devoutly beginning the first lesson. In the midst of “Zephaniah” there was a slight noise at the door and a step sounded over the rough floor. The solitary reader did not raise his eyes; and, the lesson over, he bravely lifted up his mild tenor in the chant, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most Highest.” A girl’s voice took up the air; the mild tenor dropped into its own part, and the two continued the service in a duet, spoken and sung, to its close. Then the minister retired, with his candle, to the shed, and, hanging up his surplice, patiently waited, pacing to and fro in the cold. Patiently waited; and for what? For the going away of the only friend he had in Algonquin.
The congregation lingered; its shawl must be re-fastened; indeed, it must be entirely refolded. Its hat must be retied, and the ribbons carefully smoothed. Still there was no sound from the vestry-room. It collected all the prayer-books, and piled them near the candle, making a separate journey for each little volume. Still no one. At last, with lingering step and backward glance, slowly it departed and carried its disappointed face homeward. Then Peter the Parson issued forth, lifted the careful pile of books with tender hand, and, extinguishing the lights, went out bareheaded into the darkness. The vesper service of St. John and St. James was over.
After a hot, unwholesome supper the minister returned to his room and tried to read; but the candle flickered, the cold seemed to blur the book, and he found himself gazing at the words without taking in their sense. Then he began to read aloud, slowly walking up and down, and carrying the candle to light the page; but through all the learned sentences there still crept to the surface the miserable consciousness of bodily cold. “And mental, too, Heaven help me!” he thought. “But I cannot afford a fire at this season, and, indeed, it ought not to be necessary. This delicacy must be subdued; I will go out and walk.” Putting on his cloak and comforter, (O, deceitful name!) he remembered that he had no hat. Would his slender store of money allow a new one? Unlocking his trunk, he drew out a thin purse hidden away among his few carefully folded clothes,—the poor trunk was but half full,—and counted its contents. The sum was pitifully small, and it must yet last many weeks. But a hat was necessary, whereas a fire was a mere luxury. “I must harden myself,” thought the little parson, sternly, as he caught himself shuddering with the cold; “this evil tendency to self-indulgence must and shall be crushed.”
He went down towards the dock where stood the one store of Algonquin,—stealing along in the darkness to hide his uncovered condition. Buying a hat, the poorest one there, from the Jew proprietor, he lingered a moment near the stove to warm his chilled hands. Mr. Marx, rendered good-natured by the bold cheat he had perpetrated, affably began a conversation.
“Sorry to see yer still limp bad. But it ain’t so hard as it would be if yer was a larger man. Yer see there ain’t much of yer to limp; that ’s one comfort. Hope business is good at yer chapel, and that Mrs. Malone gives yer enough to eat; yer don’t look like it, though. The winter has sot in early, and times is hard.” And did the parson know that “Brother Saul has come in from the mine, and is a holding forth in the school-house this very minit?”
No; the parson did not know it. But he put on his new hat, whose moth-holes had been skilfully blackened over with ink, and turned towards the door.
“It ’s nothing to me, of course,” continued Mr. Marx, with a liberal wave of his dirty hand; “all your religions are alike to me, I ’m free to say. But I wonder yer and Saul don’t work together, parson. Yer might do a heap of good if yer was to pull at the same oar, now.”
The words echoed in the parson’s ears as he walked down to the beach, the only promenade in Algonquin free from stumps. Could he do a “heap of good,” by working with that ignorant, coarse, roaring brother, whose blatant pride, dirty shirt, and irreverent familiarity with all things sacred were alike distasteful, nay, horrible to his sensitive mind? Pondering, he paced the narrow strip of sand under the low bluff; but all his efforts did not suffice to quicken or warm his chilled blood. Nevertheless, he expanded his sunken chest and drew in long breaths of the cold night air, and beat his little hands vigorously together, and ran to and fro. “Aha!” he said to himself, “this is glorious exercise.” And then he went home, colder than e
ver; it was his way thus to make a reality of what ought to be.
Passing through one of the so-called streets, he saw a ruddy glow in front of the school-house; it was a pine-knot fire whose flaring summons had not been unheeded. The parson stopped a moment and warmed himself, glancing meanwhile furtively within, where Brother Saul was holding forth in clarion tones to a crowded congregation; his words reached the listener’s ear, and verified the old proverb. “There ’s brimstone and a fiery furnace for them as doubts the truth, I tell you. Prayin’ out of a book—and flowers—and candles—and night-gownds ’stead of decent coats—for it ’s night-gownds they look like, though they may call them surpluses” (applause from the miners)—“won’t do no good. Sech nonsense will never save souls. You ’ve jest got to fall down on your knees and pray hard—hard—with groaning and roaring of the spirit—until you ’re as weak as a rag. Nothing else will do; nothing,—nothing.”
The parson hurried away, shrinking (though unseen) from the rough finger pointed at him. Before he was out of hearing a hymn sounded forth on the night breeze,—one of those nondescript songs that belong to the border, a favorite with the Algonquin miners, because of a swinging chorus wherein they roared out their wish to “die a-shouting,” in company with all the kings and prophets of Israel, each one fraternally mentioned by name.
Reaching his room, the parson hung up his cloak and hat, and sat down quietly with folded hands. Clad in dressing-gown and slippers, in an easy-chair, before a bright fire,—a revery, thus, is the natural ending for a young man’s day. But here the chair was hard and straight-backed, there was no fire, and the candle burned with a feeble blue flame; the small figure in its limp black clothes, with its little gaitered feet pressed close together on the cold floor as if for warmth, its clasped hands, its pale face and blue eyes fixed on the blank expanse of the plastered wall, was pathetic in its patient discomfort. After a while a tear fell on the clasped hands and startled their coldness with its warmth. The parson brushed the token of weakness hastily away, and rising, threw himself at the foot of the large wooden cross with his arms clasping its base. In silence for many moments he lay thus prostrate; then, extinguishing the candle, he sought his poor couch. But later in the night, when all Algonquin slept, a crash of something falling was heard in the dark room, followed by the sound of a scourge mercilessly used, and murmured Latin prayers,—the old cries of penitence that rose during night-vigils from the monasteries of the Middle Ages. And why not English words? Was there not something of affectation in the use of these mediæval phrases? Maybe so; but at least there was nothing affected in the stripes made by the scourge. The next morning all was as usual in the little room, save that the picture of Santa Margarita was torn in twain, and the bracket and vase shattered to fragments on the floor below.
