Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1877 — LITTLE FOXES. [ARTICLE]

LITTLE FOXES.

“ Dear me! tnere comes Grandma Jarvis!" sighed pretty Mabel Lee, as she looked oat of the window and saw an old lady coming across the lawn—a very queer-looking old lady, in a plain gray gown, a dark purple shawl, and an oldfashioned silk calash over her thick-ruffled cap. “ Mabel!” said her mother indignantly. “ Oh, I know it, mammy dear. I’m an awful sinner; but Grandma Jarvis is so good, and sensible, and so forth, I always feel as if I were a poor little nut in the j aws of a steel nut-cracker when she is about." “ She generally finds out and brings out the good in you," said Mrs. Lee, smiling, but she said no more, for Mrs. Jarvis turned the door-handle at that moment and came in. . You saw at once, if you saw her face, that she was a person of keen insight and judgment; perhaps Jess lovable thana gentler and more gracious nature, but yet a woman to be thoroughly trusted and reied en. Mabel was a lady-like, bright girl, spoiled, to be sure, as children are apt to be, when there is but one in the family, and resenting, like any spoiled child, her grandmother’s sharp comments and sensible advice. At heart, however, she respected her, and perhaps a little more that the old lady was rich and generous, and jroung people, even the least mercenary and grasping, feel kindly toward the hand that brings timely and costly gifts. Mabel even forgave the Old-World dress, since that gray gown was heavy lustretess silk; the thick-quilled cap ruffles India muslin and thrbad-lace; the purple shawl crape, covered with embroidery, and the white kerchief fastened with one great diamond. Grandma Jarvis never thought about her clothes further than to have them comfortable, and not too outre. She knew very well the world was like Mabel, and would forgive the simple fashion for the costly inaterial, and, with a certain grim humor, she always called her diamond pin “ Charity.” “It covers so many of my sins, mv dear," she said. “ I pass for a woman o's sense with ninety people out of a hundred, simply on account of this big tflnket. It blinds them so they can’t see I am out of the fashion.” To-day Mrs. Jarvis had a definite errand. She sat down on the sofh and took off her calash with deliberation. ‘‘Meheta&i/’ said she, fixing her eyes on ,the young girl, whose color rose to her sass face at the obnoxious name, “ I hear you are going to be married.” Mabel blushed still more hotly, and looked straight out of the window. The tell-tale pane reflected a knit browand unmistakably cross lips. Mrs. Jarvu laughed. “ You are rather startling, mother.” old ladjr. “ I got your note last night,

Hetty, and I made up my mind to come over this morning and see about it” "Yours are the first congratulations, mother. Nobody else knows it." " I haven’t congratulated anybody yet," snapped Mrs. Jarvis. “ I never do congratulate anybody till a year after their wedding-day, ana then I don’t have to veiy often. I came to say, don’t any of you give the child a tea-service. I want to do that myself. She’s got my name, and it ought to be gilt, or silvered, or something, to console her for such an oldfashioned appellation, though she does top and tall it as if it were a gooseberry.” " O grandma 1” Mabel turned a pleased and pretty face away from the window now “ Don’t be overcome yet. Maybe you’ll change your mind before the end, miss I’ve got a bit of advice for you and a promise to take first. The advice is to leave off the piano for six months, and take to the kitchen. Men can’t live on love and waltzes, much leas a man of the Selden tribe. I know ’em. If he don’t have good food, he’ll be sour first, and then he’ll have dyspepsia, and there’ll be a sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees; which things are a figure. ‘But that's the advice.” “ O grandma, I can make splendid cake, and ice-pudaing, too, and Charlottes, just as good as Cross!” "Fiddle-stick! You can’t make bread, •r boil a potato, or broil a steak.” “ But anybody can do that.” Mrs. Lee smiled, and grandma turned a withering look on Mabel. “ Don’t be a fool I There isn't one in a hundred can do either, and I doubt if you’ve got brains to; but you might try.” There rose up instantly a mighty resolve in Mabel’s feminine soul to show Grandma Jarvis that she could do more than she gave her credit for, that she would learn how to cook in spite of this discouraging prophecy. It is just possible grandma knew whoshewas talking to. “ Then, as to the promise. I’m going to send you over a motto; one of these painted gimcracks everybody hangs up everywhere. I don’t know why they call them illuminated, I’m sure, except by the rule of contraries, for they need extra spectacles and a calcium light to read them by; but you can read mine; I warned off the curlicues; only promise to read it every morning before breakfast, or I can tell you you won’t get the teaset.”

“ Oh, yes, of course I’ll read it, grandma—the idea!” “ Well, well, if you read it you’ll think about it, I’ll warrant. Now I must go home and send John over with the things;” and, with a frosty little caress on Mabie’s fair cheek, and a nod to her mother, the old lady went. "Grandma kisses me just like a clamshell,” said Mabel, in half-soliloquy as she sat down again by the window. "Her mother could not help laughing, for the cool nip of thin lips, that was grandma’s substitute for a kiss, certainly did suggest shells and clamminess. Jonn came directly back with the package, and Mabel eagerly untied and unfolded it. The motto was printed in large German text, easy to read, though gay with gold and colors, and it ran thus: “ Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.” Mabel stared. “ Mother, what on earth doesit mean?” Mrs. Lee smiled and sighed, Doth, as she read the legend over the girl’s shoulder. "Look here, Mab,” said she, slipping a flat gold hoop off her third finger, and the girl read inside, “ Beware of little foxes!” and looked up, freshly astonished, into her mother’s face.

“ I suppose grandma means me to tell you a story, Mabel, which she told me when I was first engaged. It hurt her bitterly to tell it; but it did me much good. I think she could not bring herself to tell you. You are not her daughter, and cannot love her as I do, and you never have had reason to pity her as I have. You never saw Grandfather Jarvis, Mabel.” “ Why, I thought be died before I was born.” “ No, he died ten years ago in Brazil. I never saw him myself, Mab; he never even knew he had a daughter.” “Mother!" Mrs. Lee’s lovely dark eyes filled with tears as she drew Mabel down beside her on the sofa.

“ I have been told that grandma was a very beautiful, high-spirited girl at your age, dear; animated, brilliant, thoroughly satisfied with herself and her surroundings, especially when Jonathan Jarvis fell in love with her. Her father died when she was three years old, and her in - valid mother adored the child, and spoiled her even more than I do you.” Mabel kissed the soft hand laid on her shoulder, and gave it a willful little bite. “ Don’t be horrid, mammy, or I shall eat you right up. As if I was one bit spoiled!” “If you were not, my child, you wouia not need grandma’s lesson. She was spoiled, as I said, and Jonathan Jarvis knew it, but he was bewitched by her spirit and beauty, and thought, as men are apt to think, that he could control and cure all that. She loved him, too, very deeply, after her fashion, and there was nothing to delay their marriage, but the day was scarcely fixed when her mother suddenly sank and died. Grandmother did not mourn so hopelessly that it was thought best to put off her marriage, though, out of respect to her mother's memory, there was no wedding party, and the ‘ happy pair’ began their life at once in the ola homestead, where grandma lives to-day. “ The outlook before these two was very fair; youth, health, competency, what seemed to be devoted love, made them an apparently enviable couple; but no sooner were these unbroken wills brought into daily contact than trouble began. “ You may laugh, Mabel, but their first dispute was about a coffee-pot Mother E' irred the old-fashioned urn, her husthe newer style of pitcher. Neither would yield in a mere matter of taste, and this was the beginning of evil. “ Billy? Yes, it looks wonderfully silly to us; but I think I heard a very warm discussion only yesterday on the proper style of riding-hats for a lady.” Mabel colored to the waves of her dark hair, and tried to smile. “They came to a compromise on this matter, agreeing to drink chocolate in place of coffee; but other small disputes followed; they all burnt in on grandma’s mind, but I forget most of them, so slight and trivial were the matters of discussion, though they grew to active means of torment.

“ A child was born, and Jonathan, in his sad and sore heart, thought that would bring peace, and his indignant and grieved wife hoped it also, for each blamed the other as combatants will; but the baby’s eyes never saw their strife; it died, and the hope died with it. Little frets are what wear away love and life, Mabel. My poor father!—and my poor mother! There was no kindly friend to say a Judicious word to either. They

showed a smiling front to the world outside, but grew more alienated dally. “There was no real quarrel, no vital disagreement, but the hourly fret of undisciplined tempera, impatient natures, strong wills and a self-conidderation that forbade yielding, that cherished pride and petulance, that recognized no duty except as owed to itself. ■ “The end of these things hastened. Before the nameless babe had slept in its green grave a year, father had set out for Brazil in a merchant vessel, leaving this short adieu to his wife: “ ‘ Yoa can say I have gone South on business, Mehetabei,' he wrote, ‘but you must know I shall never come back. lam tired of living in torment, and you will be glad to part with one who could never please you. Bo farewell Your* to command, Jonathan Jmi vis.’ “Mother was frantically angry at first. She raved in her own chamber over what she termed a mortal insult, but, as day after day came on, and her loneliness and weakness grew over her, she began to see things more honestly; and when news came that the ship had foundered at sea, and all hands perished, then she was entirely prostrated. As she told me, her past life rose up, looked her in the face, and struck her down.

“ I was prematurely born, and a very long illness carried her to the gates of the grave. She recovered at last, a stern and saddened woman, with only one interest in her life; but she brought me up with strictness and care, tenderly as she loved me; and when I waa about to take my life up for myself, told me this bitter story, and gave me this ring. ‘“lf I had killed the little foxes,’ said she, sadly, ‘ I might to-day goodly vineyard of my own. Beware of them, Hetty. They have spoiled my life.’ "And after all, Mabel, my father was not lost on that wreck. He was picked up by another vessel, and, under an assumed name, lived on in Brazil. In the grasp of mortal illness, he wrote to his wife, asking and giving pardon. It was from him that all her wealth came, but she has never forgiven herself.” “ Poor grandma!” sobbed Mabel, “ and I have been so horridly hateful to her!” “ It will console her for all your freaks, my darling, if you only profit by her pitiful story.” The next time Grandma Jarvis came over, Mabel greeted her with a stringent bug and a heartfelt kiss, not at all of the clamshell order. ,

“Gracious!” exclaimed the old lady, withdrawing herself a little to look at Mabel; but she sAw the brown eyes fill, and her own grew dim. "Go along, child, go along,” she growled, under her breath. “And, now you’ve got your lesson, don’t forget it.” It would have been hard for Mabel to do so, when the exquisitely-wrought teaset that adorned her table through all net married life bore on every cover the sly and eager head of a tiny lox, and the very cream-pitcher had for its handle the slender body of that treacherous animal, its ager head peering over the brim, and its long, bushy tail curving outward at the base. Many and many a time, when some trifling matter irritated her, and a quick or stinging word rose to her lips, a glance at the tea-set shut her pretty mouth closely just in time; and when Grandma Jarvis came into Boston a year after Mabel’s marriage, to eat her Christmas dinner at Mr. Selden's, she nodded quaintly at the lady of the house as she said: “ I congratulate you now, Mehetabel. I can do it with a clear conscience. It’s been a good hunting year, I see.” Mabel colored and laughed, and her husband stared, but nobody explained the sybillic utterance; only Mrs. Lee gave her mother a loving and grateful look, and Grandma Jarvis wiped her spectacles. And the moral is: Let us all go foxhunting!—Hoss Terry Cooke, in Youth't Companion.