THE REPUBLIC. VOL. III. NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1852. No. 1. MY FIRST KISS: OR, THE LAST TIME OF ASKING. A CONNECTICUT SLEIGHING SCENE. BY THOMAS R. WHITNEY. first person singular," as our schoolmaster had it in my day. Her name was—but that is none of your business; so, for the sake of a name, we will suppose it to have been "Mercy"-that will do - Mercy Daven GOD bless the snow! Isn't it cheerful! | hearth and roof of your very obedient “the The smooth, white, virgin sheet, as it lies upon the earth, undulating and sparkling in the moonlight like a diamond prairie, relieved only here and there in its glittering monotony by a skeleton tree, a half-covered stone wall, or the leeward side of a bluffy promontory! And all so still, too-the velvet surface reflecting no sound, emitting no voice, and the surrounding atmosphere so passive and quiet, that the echo of even a well-meant kiss startles the air with a crispy vibration, and makes the heart of the coy maiden leap into her throat! God bless the snow! I love it. And I have good reason, too, as you shall learn, if you will have a little patience; for as I am a married man, and a happy fellow for a countryman, I am compelled by the force of facts to associate all my joyous domestic reflections, and garnish all my retrospective congratulations, with the ante-memorial of a Connecticut snow-scene. Ten years ago I was rayther a youth, yet as ardent and uncompromising in self-conceit as any thrice-crowned veteran; but the overruling genius of my destiny-the star of all my ambition-the food of my most glowing aspirations-the magic wand that could, on a motion, quell my pride, and cause my vanity to shrink back into the insignificance of just nothing, was a fair damsel of a neighboring village, five miles from the paternal never mind the surname, it is so long since she bore it, that we have all nearly forgotten it ever belonged to her. I had been nigh about two years doing my prettiest to get Mercy to say YES to my most "honorable proposition," and all to no purpose. She wa'n't cold-hearted nor offish towards me, and always seemed glad to see me, and sorry to have me go away; and I know she never would consent to ride out, or walk out, or sit up with any other of the forty-nine beaux that beset her blessed home; and yet, to save my picture, I couldn't get her to listen to such a thing as love or matrimony. I could talk to her by the hour on all other subjects, and her dear voice would respond to mine in tones like the notes of a sweet-toned instrument, and her eye would brighten with discourse, and her soul become absorbed as our theme went on; but when I spoke of love, it always seemed as though a dash of cold water had been thrown upon a cheerful fire, quenching at once both light and warmth. To press her hand even at the hour of the last goodnight was a feat requiring no little nerve, fatal presumption. and to have offered a kiss would have been leaping a chasm, which the eccentric winds had created by piling across the road a series of consecutive snow-drifts. It was glorious!. We had just had a regular old-fashioned north-east snow-storm: remember, it is ten years ago I am writing about. The snow fell for about two days and two nights, covering every thing, as it seemed, but the chimney-tops, through which the blue smoke curled up as naturally and quietly as though nothing unusual had happened; and with this exception, very little of animation was apparent any where. The cattle and pigs were safely housed; man had little to do out o' doors in the country at such a season, and even the farm dogs couldn't get outside of the kitchens to disturb the pervading silence of nature with their useless barking. The storm was over, and the sombre canopy of clouds that had hung for three days over the earth had been swept away by a bracing north-wester; evening was coming on; and as the sun went down with a chilly, sparkling look, away off in the distant south-west, as though in search of a warmer climate, the moon, just at the full, lifted the upper edge of her huge circle above the eastern horizon. Wearied with the siege which the storm had inflicted upon all things mortal during its fierce stay, I longed to go out into the fresh, pure atmosphere, and, with the promise of a glorious night before me, it was impossible to resist the inclination; so, although it was not my regular night of visitation, I determined to harness young bay, put him before the "pung," and make an evening of it with Mercy. No sooner said than done. In ten minutes I was on the road, going at a swift rate over the drifts, to the merry music of a double string of sleigh-bells. Whew! how we went! My pony, just released from the tedious stall, was as happy in the opportunity of stretching his legs, as I in the contemplation of an evening's courtship. On we went, like a locomotive, through banks, over bare places, and across bridges and brooks; now upon the frozen ground, now up to the flanks in a snow-heap, and anon "Hello!" This word, uttered in an elongated stentoria, was the first sound, save the jangle of the bells and the sharp whistle of the iron sleigh-shoes, as they cut their way through the unbroken snow, that I had heard thus far in my brisk ride. So I reined up, and, casting a glance in the direction of the sound, I saw, in the combined effulgence of the moon and the white earth-covering, a something answerable in shape to a human head. "Hello yourself!" I answered; "what are you meant for, any way?" "Well, my father meant me for Ike Jenkins, and I s'pose mother didn't object," answered the head. "What, Ike, is that you? What on earth are you doin' here, up to your chin in a snow-bank?” "I'm all right," says he; "the snow-bank is one side o' the fence, and I'm on t'other. · Where you goin'?" Sure enough, there he stood on the lee side of the fence, and looking a little beyond, I saw the outline of his father's old farmhouse, looming up like a huge snow-bank, in the moonlight. Not caring to reveal my true mission, I answered his question evasively. "Oh," said I, "I'm bound out to break the road; nothing particular in hand. Why do you ask?" "What say you for a drive with the gals? We can get up a party in half an hour that'll startle the old people and make the snow quiver." "I'm agreeable. Who'll you get?" said I. "You go on and get Mercy, and on the way step in to the Wardle's, and tell Bet I'm a-coming; get her brother Joe out with his cutter, and send him after his flame; you know who, or, if you don't, he does. I'll drive over to Smith's and Platt's; and at eight o'clock we'll all meet at Goodwin's Corner." Half an hour found me side by side with my own heart's joy and torment, and all my road-side errands successfully accomplished. | I told Mercy of our brief-planned sleighingparty, and that I had promised to "plant" her at "Goodwin's Corner" at eight o'clock precisely, at which time and place the rendezvous was to take place. Mercy looked first into my eyes to assure herself that I was serious, next out of the window, as if contemplating the hazard of the undertaking, and then at the gaunt, old-fashioned clock, which had stood ticking in the south-west corner of that little sitting-room for at least half a century. turned in the same direction, where we discovered, by the light of a fire blazing upon the hearth-there was no other light in the room-that it was already half-past seven o'clock. She again looked from the window; the prospect was indeed formidable, but then the glorious moonlight made it inviting; she wanted to go, but felt a little timid, and finally half declined. But I told her I had made a promise in her name, and she must not be the one to make me break it, besides robbing the party of its brightest attraction; so she at last consented to go, and tripped up stairs to get the furs together, while I sat before the blazing hickory, as it went on burning and crackling, and sending out warmth from the hearth of that little parlor. This was before our farmers had introduced into their houses the modern innovation on good old country customs-the anthracite coal-grate. I love a hickory fire, especially in the country; it seems more natural and appropriate than the little peck measure of scorching, imprisoned coals, whose very breath seems to shoot through the bars, burning, not warming, the atmosphere. Coal-grates will do for the city, where every thing is done by the small measure; but, for the country, give me a Oh, how well I remember the heavy, measured click of that old clock! How many an hour has its monotonous sound been mingled on my senses with her sweet voice, seeming, the while, like the stern beating of the pulse of Time over the strings of a harp! There it stood, the brass pendulum swinging incessantly to and fro within the old mahog-frank, well-seasoned pile of good hickory and any case, now black with age; the face, once tastily gilt, now scarred with time; the long iron fingers moving ever, ever forward, never pausing, never returning, but still austerely pointing to the moment latest past, and with a short clucking whisper announcing audibly the death of each as it went by into eternity. There it stood, the old clock, and there it had stood for fifty years gone, and there it stands yet, looking gravely down on that cheerful little parlor; and still, like a soldier at his practice, marking time. "We take no note of time but by its loss;" and here am I wasting time on an episode about an old clock, when I should be writing of the sleighing-party. Mercy looked up into the old familiar face of the time-piece, and my eyes instinctively a clean hearth. In that, there's something that speaks of freedom and cheerfulness; the generous blaze shoots up and athwart the chimney, as though, like every thing else, it likes to have its own way and plenty of room to move in; a pleasant illumination pervades the apartment, ventilation goes on, and from the bank of solid, glowing coals which lie beneath the flame comes forth a genial, healthy warmth, instead of the close, hot atmosphere begat of an anthracite coalgrate. It was by such a fire that I whistled myself into a brown study ten years ago in that little parlor; and I thought that if Mercy would only be mine, or if I could only be hers, and we could live together in that same little room, with the same old clock for a companion, and just such a fire on the hearth |