the other day the papers announced the death of the ex-empress eugénie. she lingered along, feeble and half-blind, until she was nearly 95 years old. she has been called “the queen of sorrows,” for few other women have lived a sadder life. very few of this generation knew or cared anything about her. i presume most of our young people skipped the details of her life as given in the papers. yet when i was a boy, shortly before the war between france and germany, the women of the world regarded this sad empress as the great model of beauty and fashion. i suppose it would be hard for women in these days to realize how this beautiful empress dictated to people in every land how they should arrange their hair and wear their dresses. at that time most women wore their hair in short nets bunched just below the neck, and it was the age of “hoopskirts”—most of them, as it seemed, four to five feet wide. just how this woman managed to put her ideas of fashion into the imagination of her sisters i never could understand. from the big city to the little backwoods hamlet women were studying to see what “ugeeny” advised them to wear. i have often wondered if in her last days the poor, blind, feeble woman remembered those days of power.
her death brings to mind an incident that had long been forgotten. i had been sent to one of the neighbors to borrow some milk, since our cow was dry. in those days, any caller—even a little boy—was like a pond in which one went fishing for compliments. the woman of the house, an immense, fat creature, with the shape of a barrel, a short, thick neck and a round moon face, had arrayed herself in glad clothes of the latest style—several years, i imagine, behind paris. she wore an immense hoopskirt, which gave her the appearance of walking inside of a hogshead. her hair was parted in the middle and brought down beside her wide face to be caught in a net just below her ears. i know so little and care so much less about style in clothes that i can remember in detail only two costumes that i have ever seen women wear. this outfit is one of them.
“this is just what ugeeny is wearing,” said the fat lady as she poured out the milk. “you can tell your aunt that you have seen one lady dressed just like paris.”
it did not strike me as very impressive, but i was glad to have the experience.
“you can tell her, too, that a very fine gentleman came here today and said i looked enough like ugeeny to be her half-sister—dressed as i am now. he has been in paris, too.”
“it was a book agent,” put in her husband, “and sold her a book on the strength of that yarn. say, mary, you don’t look any more like ugeeny than old spot does—and you don’t need to.”
“the trouble with you, john drake, is that you have no idea of beauty.”
“i know it. i may not have any soul, but i’ve got a stomach, and i know that you can make the best doughnuts and indian pudding ever made in bristol county. that’s more than ugeeny ever did, or ever can do. you are worth three of her for practical value to the world, and i think you a handsome woman—but you can’t look like her, because you haven’t got the shape, and i’m glad of it.”
but where was there ever a woman who could be satisfied with such evident truth, and who did not reach out after the impossible? she turned to old grandpa, who sat back in the corner, away from the light.
“now, grandpa, you seen a lot of the world. what do you say? don’t i look like ugeeny?”
old grandpa nodded his white head and looked at her critically.
“you’re in her class, mary—that’s what i’ll say—you’re in her class!”
“you’re in her class,” repeated grandpa. “the people in this world are divided into two classes—strung together like beads on different strings. some strings are like character, others like looks or shape or thinking or maybe meanness. you can’t get out of your class—for the lord organized it and teaches it. you look at me; i’m in the class with some of the finest men that ever lived on earth!”
“now, mary, see what you’ve done,” said john drake. “you’ve got grandpa started on that class business. he’s worse than ugeeny.”
but grandpa went right ahead. “ain’t i in the class with the old and new prophets? here i have for years been telling what is coming to the world. folks won’t always be down as they are now. my wife killed herself carrying water and fuel to get up vittles and keep the house clean. some day or ’nuther every farmhouse will have water and heat and light right inside. there’ll be power to do all this heavy work. in those days farmers will be kings.”
the old man’s face lighted up as he talked.
“you don’t believe me now, but it will all come. i’m out ahead of the crowd. so was wendell phillips and william lloyd garrison and charles sumner on the slavery question. folks hooted at them, laughed them down and did all they could to stop their ideas. but you can’t stop one of these ideas when there’s a man back of it. those men lived to see what the world called fool notions made into wisdom. they just had visions which don’t come to common men. that’s what i’ve got now, and what i ask is, ain’t i in their class?”
“if i was in your place i wouldn’t mind, grandpa,” said mary, as she shook out that great hoopskirt. “that’s not good talk for boys; it makes them discontented!”
“but that’s why they’ve got to be if the world is going ahead,” put in grandpa. “what’s the matter with farming today, i’ll ask? education has all gone to other things. farmers think the common schools are plenty good enough for farmers, while the colleges are all for lawyers and such like. you mark what i say—some day or ’nuther there will be farm colleges as big as any, where farming will be taught just like lawing or doctoring. then people will see that farming is agriculture, and the difference between the two will change the world. this ugeeny doesn’t amount to much as a woman, and i don’t believe this prince imperial will ever rule france, but ugeeny has put women like mary in her class. these clothes look foolish to me, but every woman who follows ugeeny in dress gets into her class, and it’s like a schoolgirl passing from one grade to another, for some day they’ll pass out of that hoopskirt and that bob net for their hair and rise up to better things, and it will be ugeeny that started them. she may be only a painted doll, but she has given the women ideas of beauty and something better than common. sometime or ’nuther you will see the result of her idle life. that’s why i say mary’s in ugeeny’s class. she’s got the vision of beauty and something far ahead of you, john. you are smart and strong, but mary’s getting class. that hoopskirt and that net are not prisons—they help to set her free.”
“well, grandpa,” said john, good-naturedly, “i suppose, according to you, i ought to put on a swallow-tailed coat every time i milk.”
“no; not when you milk, john, but if you shaved every day and put on your best clothes once a day for supper, you would get in the upper class, and carry your boys with you. but i ask this boy here, ain’t i in their class?”
i was sure of it, but just then we heard the horn sounding far down the road. i knew that uncle daniel had grown tired of waiting for the milk, so he blew the horn to remind me that i was still in the class of errand boys.
in august of that year i went up on black mount after huckleberries, and ran upon grandpa once more. he sat on a rock resting, while mary and three children were picking near by. the hill was thick with a tangle of berry vines and briars, with snakes and woodchucks as sole inhabitants. old grandpa sat on the rock and waved his stick about.
“in my younger days this hill was a cornfield. i have seen it all in wheat. farmers let education and money get away, and, of course, the best boys chased out after them. but it won’t always be so. some day or ’nuther this field will come back. it won’t pay in these coming days to raise huckleberries in this way. they will be raised in gardens like strawberries and raspberries. this hill will have to produce something that is worth more—peaches or apples.”
“but how can they make peaches grow on this sour hill, grandpa?” asked one of the boys. “there’s a seedling now—10 years old and not four feet high!”
“they will bring in lime for the soil as they will coal in place of wood. i don’t know how it will be done, but some day or ’nuther they will use yeast in the soil as they do in bread to make it come up, and they’ll harness the lightning to ’lectrify it. you wait till these farm colleges give us knowledge. and farmers, too. they won’t always stand back and fight each other and backbite and try to get each other’s hide. some day or ’nuther grown-up men and women are going to see what life ought to be. they will come together to live, instead of standing apart to die. i may not see it, and people laugh at me for saying what i know must come true. but didn’t they laugh at columbus? didn’t they try to kill galileo? wasn’t morse voted a fool? hasn’t it always been so with the men and women who looked far over the valley and saw the light ahead? and, tell me this: ain’t i in their class?”
that was 50 years and more ago. i had forgotten it, and yet when i read the headlines announcing the death of empress eugénie i had to put the paper down, for there rose before me a picture of that sunny summer day on the new england hills. on the rock in that lonely pasture sat old grandpa pointing with his stick far across the rolling valley, far to the shadow on the distant hills, where he knew the immortals were awaiting him—as one who had kept his soul clean and his faith undimmed. i wish i could look across the valley to the distant hills with the sublime hope with which he asked his old question:
“ain’t i in their class?”
a year or two ago i went back to the old town. ah, but if grandpa could see it now! the old house with its “beau” windows and new roof seemed to be dressed with as much taste as eugénie would be if she were still empress of france. there were power and light and heat all through it. two boys and a girl were home from an agricultural college—one of the boys being manager of the local selling organization. black mount was a forest of mcintosh and baldwin apple trees, the old swamp was drained and lay a thick mat of clover. grandpa’s vision had come true—all but one thing. education and power had brought material things, which would have seemed to be miracles to john and mary. yet farmers were not “kings,” after all, as grandpa said they would be, for there was still discontent and talk of injustice. but, after all, that is what grandpa said—“that’s what they’ve got to be, if the world is going ahead.”
perhaps, after all, a “divine discontent” is the noblest legacy of the ages.
but in the churchyard back in one corner i came upon grandpa’s grave. it was not very well cared for. it had not been trimmed. a bird had made her nest and reared her brood right by the side of the headstone. it was a lonely place. as i stood there a cow in the adjoining pasture put her head over the stone wall and tried to gnaw the grass on that neglected grave. and this was what they had carved on the stone:
“the lord giveth and the lord taketh away!”
if i could have my way i would put up another stone with this inscription:
grandpa.
“he has entered their class.”
