Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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The Augusta Seminary Annual. 15 keen, Immorous, penetrative, but softened by a halo of sympa- thetic love and real tenderness ; here he is not the cxmc. bnt the magician who wins us to his very self by showing us in a thousand artless ways all that is in his own great heart. M. L. Street. Pastoral Sketches — I. IN Piedmont Virginia, close to the Southwest Mountains and looking out upon the more distant Blue Ridge, lies my grand- father ' s farm — the farm whose every hill and vale and meadow, whose every stream and deep and shady wood is linked with recol- lections of my childhood. And as I now recall those days many a picture of the mind revives again, and again I watch the laborers at the various occupations on the farm. Now it is Ma ' time and they are busy with the sheep-shearing. The very words bring to my mind a bright spring morning and a grove of large old oaks, tall poplars and spreading chestnut trees — a grove which, from matchless depth of- shade, is chosen for the shearers ' covert from the sun. There the flock is driven into a pen around the sides of which are built rough plank tables, where the shearers stand. The sheep are tied down to the boards to pre- vent their struggles, and, though nnich frightened at first, they soon become quiet, only lifting their heads from time to time, and turning their soft eyes to the shearer, as if to ask, Must I wait much longer? The lambs outside of the pen for a while bleat piteously, but as they see the sheep set free one by one they seem to understand what is going on, and bound off to their play. Xear the shearing-pen is a large table on which the fleeces are spread, and around this the women and boys stand to pick the burrs out of the wool before it is weighed and packed into the large sack standing near. How many happy hours we children used to spend ; now lean- ing on the fence and watching the shears flash in and out of the snowy wool ; now helping to pick the burrs or guessing what the

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14 The Augusta Seminary Annual. with amusement at each new discovery of a weakness or pet sin, and soften with pity at each newly revealed misfortune or hidden skeleton. The periwig seems never so ridiculous; the coffee- house never so full of bustle, wine and wit; the doubtful gal- lantries of these merry men never so extravagant or fascinating as when shown by Thackeray. But the heart of the writer appears under all this account of frivolity in the words, Ah ! it is a weary feast, that banquet of wit where no love is. He pen- etrates into the cavern of Swift ' s gloomy heart and finds even in its dim recesses some fitful gleams of tenderness. There is still a lock of Stella ' s hair in existence wrapped in a paper on which is inscribed in Swift ' s own hand, Only a woman ' s hair. Some critics have denounced this little phrase as a desire of Swift ' s to veil his feelings under a cynical mask of indifference, but Thack- eray sees only a pathetic shrinking from the cold eyes of the world, a remorseful shuddering over the grave of a tender victim whom he had not the heart to see die. In his impartial judg- ment of this lonely giant, he shows his hatred of meanness, his hori ' or of skepticism, and his thorough knowledge of life. It is in his Essay on Steele that his geniality, his philosophy, his tenderness, his sympathy, are displayed most. He takes us to Dick Steele ' s house where the Christian Hero is hastily excusing his departure to his wife, then down to The Rose, where the young Captain cuts quite a smart figure and where Dick bragged not a little ; but with all his swagger we love him every step of the way, seeing with tlie charitable eyes and feeling with the kind heart of Thackeray. His wit sparkles through all his essays. Perhaps it is shown at its brightest in his Essay on Congreve. His description of the Phoebus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Gardens is fairly ablaze. But even while Congreve ' s comic feast, which is set before us, flares with lights and while we are yet dazzled by its brilhancy, the heart of Thackeray cries to us that A touch of Steele ' s ten- derness is worth all this finery — a flash of Swift ' s lightning — a beam of Addison ' s pure ray, and this tawdry playhouse taper is invisible. It is in this mirror of his OAvn workmanship, this portrayal of The English Humorists, that the image of Thackeray is reflected,

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16 The Augusta Seminary Annual. fleece would weigh ; now listening to the stories Uncle Simon told of shearin ' times fo ' de war, when Mars James kep ' de long wool sheep ; and now straying off to gather violets, or to trun our hats with the hawthorn blossoms, to rob the bees of the honey in the poplar blooms, or to peep into the sparrow ' s nest, gently rocked in the swaying eglantine. Spring passes into summer and the busy harvest time has come. While the birds are still singing their morning song and the dew is still sparkling on the grass, the voice of the farmer is heard giving directions to the men. Some harness the horses to the binder, while others whet their cradles. Soon all is ready and they go forth to the field. Down on the low grounds the clatter- ing binder goes back and forth cutting the wheat, binding it into sheaves and tossing it to the little boys, who place it in heaps at short distances and convenient to the shocker. Up on the hill, too steep for the binder, the reapers, forming a long line, swing their cradles and sing their weu ' d, plaintive songs. Kow and then there is a lull in the music as the workers rest for a mo- ment and then begin again with redoubled energy. They are fol- lowed by women who, binding and shocking the grain, remind one of Kuth as she gleaned among the sheaves in the field of Boaz long ago. Now here, now there, the happy children chase the little rab- bits, driven from their beds by the reapers, or hunt for the par- tridge ' s nest full of the pretty white eggs, or, at last, tired of play, throw themselves on the grass beneath the shady old walnut tree. Harvest is past, and the farmer ' s eyes are now turned towards the vineyard. lie watches the grapes with care, as, from day to day, the blush becomes more rosy until it deepens into a red or purple. Then the merry laborers, carrying boxes and scissors, go to the sunny hillsides where the luscious fruit hangs in clusters from the trellised dnes. First each boy and girl chooses a row, and then the work begins in earnest. Clip, clip, clip, go the scis- sors until the boxes are full, and then they are carried home where, under the dense shade of the osage-orange and the locust, the busy workers, their broad-brimmed hats pushed back on their heads or thrown upon the grass beside them, form a picturesque group as they sit on benches, chairs, and stools in reach of the