Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1873 — “DAT TADDEUS.” [ARTICLE]

“DAT TADDEUS.”

“Oil dear! what shall Ido? I just wish Hetty was here, or even Dick, though he is such a torment!" Poor little Ellie! A whole week at Grandma Peyton’s had exhausted the endless stock of fun and adventure she was so sure of finding in Kadesh. But there was good reason for that now, because the child was there alone—quite another thing from summer vacation with Hetty and Dick, and Ruth and John, to say nothing of Robie and the baby. Dear Uncle Will was on on a long voyage. Grandpa Peyton was quite blind now, and so old he wanted to sleep all the time, and mustn’t be disturbed. Grandma was very handsome and stately, to be sure, with her snowy caps and snowier curls, her thick black silks and her lace ruffles; but, somehow, she cared more for her foreign correspondence and the Blue stocking Club than for little girls. She didn’t understand*them at all. Ellie’s mamma wasn’t her own child; and Madam Peyton had never known how sweet a thing it is to pet and cuddle and love a little turn-bled-frocked, tangled-eurled girlie of her own; if she had, she would have understood the wistful, longing look with which poor homesick little Ellie greeted -her with good-morning and good-evening kiss. It was all so cold and cheerless and proper, when Ellie wanted so much to throw her arms round her grandmother’s neck and ling and be hugged, squeeze and be squeezed, as Hetty and the boys were doing at home with papa and mamma and dear old Dinah! * There was Mehitable Jane Johnson, who reigned in the kitchen, to be sure; but she was tall and angular and fierce, with her scanty grey locks twisted into a tight little button on the top of her head. Ignorant and forlorn to the last degree would have been the child who should look to her for endearment! If cleanliness is next to godliness, Mehitable was a long way on the heavenly road. She was always "jest washed up,” and the fresh flavor of soap that attached itself to her premises as well as to her person would have been a trusty landmark if Egyptian darkness had prevailed throughout the land. “Lud sakes alive, child! wliar air ye moppin’ for neow, I’d like ter know? Here, don’t ye go trackin’ my lloor agin; I've jest got washed, up from yer medder muck and the flower mess ye brought in. What possessed ye, I’d like ter know, down that there swamp? Ye might ’a gone clean through ter the bottom, if Tim adn’t heern ye yell, and hauled ye aeout. Any way, yer shoes air half-way ter Chany by tis time!” *' “I guess, Mehitable, I shouldn’t have got «lean through, anyway, judging by the amount of mud Tim pin down on the floor with me when he brought me home. It was the lovely scarlet cardinal-flowers I wanted; anyway, I held on to them tight, and you can’t say they don’t look pretty in the old brown pitcher with the smokeplant. They are just like streaks of lire.” “Wa’al, ye’re right enough both ways. If ye’d follored yer shoes clean through to Chany, ye’d both ’a been dirty enough by the tune ye got there, and them there cardinals air kind o’ fiery, and pooty too.” “Oh, Mehitable, can’t you tell me something I can do? I am so tired of being alone. Grandma says I mustn’t go out of the garden to-day; indeed, I can’t go any where till mamma sends me some new shoes. Can’t I hunt for eggs?” “Hunt for eggs! Idu declare, Elizabeth Adams ! Didn’t Miss Peyton say she wouldn’t hev ye climbin’ the wood-pile and pokin’ reound the barn chamber no more? Didn’t ye hev enough yesterday, I’d like ter know, tumblin’ off the top with yer clean dress, and yer new apron full of eggs, ter say nothin’ of breakin’ up old Grizzel-top’s neSt. Would ’a hatched out next week fifteen as likely chickens as we should ’a had for Thanksgivin’. And the muss ye made of yer white dress and silk apron! No, ye don’t hunt noi eggs to-day!” “Please let me churn, then? I won’t upset the chum again. I was making believe it was a ship on fire and We had to work the pumps, and I turned too hard and too fast You know I was real sorry when the thing tipped over, and the cream spilled out on the cellar floor." “‘Real sorro’ don’t pick up Bpilled cream nor spiled butter. I guess I’ve lied enough of yer churnin’. Tell ye what ye ma y though r Tim’s pickin’ and if ye 11 shell ’em clean, and not put the pease in the pod basket, I guess I’ll give ye a book to read as ’ll keen ye quiet one while.” • “A book! a book! Oh, Mehitable, I haven’t read a book since I came here I Mamma wouldn’t put any in my trunk, because Dr. Felton said ‘my eyes were too big, and I was too white and wise.’ I don’t know what he meant, but papa said I was ‘to go to grm' sot swj

grandma was to lock up the book-case. Do you think I may read it ?” “Of course, child; “d’ye think I’d give ye anythiag-would- huzt yel It’s my book; had it ever since I was a gal no bigger’n you. That and my Westminster, and the Bible of course, are all my libr’y. Ye can sit deown on the front-door step —that’s gone to grass, anyhow. I told Tim this mornin’ he jest better letch his scythe reound ’fore Sunday, or he’d ketch it, sure.” Pea shelling was good fun, any way, without the prospective bribe of a book; but, to deserve the treasure,' Ellie devoted all her thoughts to the pease and the just distribution of pease to the pan, pods to the basket, with a scattering assortment of each on the floor, to be sure; but they were clean dirt, however, even in Mehitable’s eyes, who grunted satisfactorily, and proceeded to keep her part of the agreement. Oh, happy hour of perfect, unalloyed delight, possible only to childhood! Ellie was a passionate book-devourer; mere print had a fascination for her. It was a family legend, better founded than some received traditions, that, debarred from school-books and story-books at one time, for some good reason, which, however, .did not prevent her from wearing a generally disconsolate and woe-begone aspect, Ellie had been discovered one day after a prolonged search, flat on the floor in the attic, poring over a musty ship’s calendar, her face radiant with delight For a whole week she had not opened a book! Think of having Thaddeus of Warsaw, in four pudgy brown volumes much the worse for wear, placed in her hands, without anj sting of conscience, either, about the reading, because when Grandma Peyton went to Woodstock she had told Ellie to mind Mehitable. No more weary homesickness; no more moping; no more vain asking, “What shall I do?” no more scrapes. Mehitable blessed her lucky thought that had so easily rid her of trouble and care. And Ellie! Will there ever come any more hours like those to the little girl, seated on the hroad, low step before the porch of the great old fashioned house? The summer air, fragrant with roses and honeysuckle, that with the ivy and woodbine contested the glory of covering the gray stone wall, and musical with the whir of the grasshoppers and the hum of bees; the sweet, warm stillness of a day in June; ten years old, and the first romance! Well for the little girl it was good, pure Jane Porter’s book, and not some that came before and after. Reluctantly she left her treasure for dinner and supper, more reluctantly still for bed-time, only consoled by taking the precious volume to bed, to wake at daylight and weep over the sorrows and misfortunes of Thaddeus, the Noble, the Glorious, the Injured! How she adored Miss Beaufort and LadyTinemouth! how she hated Diana and Miss Eupliemia! how her heart throbbed at the thought of the good King Stanislaus k with what vengeance she recalled the Prussians and the cruel Cossacks! The Battle of Prague! A new glory attached itself to the very name. She would ask mamma to let her learn it when she went home. She wouldn’t grumble once about the tedious practice hour. It was the second morning that Ellie had passed in this unreal world. She was in a state when nothing would have surprised her—a message from the king, or a summons from Thaddeus himself in prison. A shadow deeper than the flickering shade from the elm-tree fell athwart her book. She raised her head, and looked out of her great dreamy gray eyes at a strange figure that stood, gaunt and silent, in the g%rden path. A slouched hat that would have disgraced a scarecrow of average sensibility half concealed a huge green patch over one eye, and did not at all conceal a very red nose, long black hair and beard, both ragged and unkempt; a coat of many colors, that might have been Joseph’s, and defied the elements ever since, hung with dangling sleeves from one shoulder, disclosing an exceedingly dirty shirt, closed at the throat with a wisp of yellow handkerchief; a red velveteen vest, guiltless of buttons; and pantaloons that might have formed part of that famous Irish gentleman’s wardrobe, “Whose Yintilation garments through The wind mOBt beautifully blew.” A crooked stick <jyp r his shoulder, sustaibihg a small dirty bundle, bare feet that looked as though their owner had come through the ‘‘medder muck,” and a regular Irishman's dhudeen in his mouth, completed the picture. The new-Comer looked at Ellie, and Ellie looked at him. “Git me someting to eat —me hungry.” Ellie silently handed him her bowl of bread-and-milk which she had brought out for her lunch, and which stood forgotten and untouched by her side. The man devoured the contents eagerly. When he had drained the last drop he said, fiercely, “More! meat!” There was an air of authority that Ellie never thought of Questioning. She laid her precious book down on the stone, and went into the kitchen to find Mehitable. She was not there. It was the custom of the house to give food to all who asked, and Ellie took from the pantry a huge slice of beef and some bread and cheese. When she returned with her burden the man was turning over the leaves of Thaddeus with an approving smile. IHe accepted graciously the bread &n 3 cheese and meat, devouring them and the book simultaneously, stopping occasionally to cross-question Ellie about the book and her admiration for the hero. Her enthusiasm knew no bounds when the dirty foreigner—who immediately became glorified in her eyes—assured her he, too, was from Warsaw, and knew the King of Poland well. “Yes, he had fought in the battle of Prague—shared his tent with General Butzou!” Her face kindled with enthusiasm, her eves grew moist with, sympathy, as her vivid imagination painted the scenes he must have witnessed. His invention became more daring, his eloquence irresistible, when he quoted, in the very words of Thaddeus, though in somewhat broken English, “‘So driven, O Poland 1 from thy ravaged plains, So mourning o’er thy sad bnt loved remains, A houseless wretch, I wander through the world, From friends, from .grandeur, and from glory hurled.’ “ - b 1 How could she question even his sublime audacity when he added: “You veeps! It is for me. Behold me! I am flat Thaddeus!” 0 blind, unquestioning faith of childhood, that could discern the beloved hero in this strange, repulsive guise! Her only thought was of sorrow that she should not have’" recognized him sooner; that she had not bid him enter; that she had not served him on bended fcnee» with » lilver aajver. Would

forgive her, and know how she adored him? ’ “My lord Thaddeus Constantine, Count Bobieskl, how can I serve you?” Certainly that was the proper way to address him. “Borne monish, quick! I must go. ” Ellie had a gold pocket-piece and two dollars in her purse that mamma had given her for spending-money. It was her. own. Oh, how lovely to be able to give it to Thaddeus! Thaddeus suffering and in distress! She no longer envied Miss Beaufort, who probably had been unable to succor him in prison, since he— Thaddeus himself—was here and in need, and she could relieve him. She flew to her room, to her trunk, and with throbbing heart brought her all and laid it in Thaddeus’ hand. It was a very dirty hand; and she didn’t like the kiss with which he thanked her, for it smelled of rum and onions; but she was happy—sorry only that Thaddeus was in such a hurry, and could not stop to tell her any more about Poland and Marsovia and the Palatine. The book lay neglected on her lap, as she sat with folded hands dreamily wishing that Thaddeus hadn’t sold his* glittering uniform and his sword and his sable palisse, though it would have been uncomfortable in summer. At last she fell asleep, and there Mehitable found her, when, after repeated calls, she failed to come to dinner. At the abrupt but not unkind touch on her shoulder the child started up, exclaiming, eagerly, “I have seen him! oh, I have seen him!’’ . . .. “Seen whov_child?P_ “Thaddeus! Thaddeus himself! And he was poor and hungry, and I gave him my lunch and my gold piece!” “Is the child crazy? Where’s the big silver spoon that was in the bowl ? Thaddeus, indeed! A tramp! a vagabond! a thief!” Poor Ellie! Her dream was shattered rudely enough. =— — Mehitable got it all out of her by degrees through cross-questioning, but She felt guilty herself for having “given the child the book, and more still for leaving her alone so long. She soothed the heartbroken little girl as well as she could, and honestly took all the blame herself when she told the story to Madam Peyton on her return that evening. Tim scoured the country for many a day, but nothing more was ever heard of "dat Thaddeus.” — Harper's Magazine for October.