Read Ebook: Roger the ranger: A story of border life among the Indians by Pollard Eliza F

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Ebook has 1202 lines and 70904 words, and 25 pages

Return to Chappaqua--A Walk over the Grounds--The Side-hill House--Our First Sunday at Chappaqua--Drive to Mount Kisco--A Country Church--A Dame Ch?telaine--Our Domestic Surroundings

Arrival of the Piano--Routine of a Day--Morning Toilettes--The Dining-room--Pictures--Ida and Gabrielle--How occupied--The Evening Mail--Musical Evening

An Unexpected Visit--Morning Drives--Gabrielle's Ponies--A Repulsive Object--A Visitor--The King of Sweden's Soup--Advantages of a Royal Kitchen--Startling Experience--Ida's Letters--Strange Contents--A Lucky Stone--Request for a Melodeon--Offers of Marriage--Arrival of a Suitor--Reasons why he should marry Ida Greeley--He proves a Lunatic--He is taken before a Magistrate--He is lodged in the County Jail

Sunday in the Country--Proximity of a Meeting-house--How we pass our Sundays--The House in the Woods--Ida's Glen--Mrs. Greeley's Favorite Spring--The Children's Play-house--Gabrielle's Pets--Travelling in 1836--New York Society--Mr. Greeley's Friday Evenings--Mrs. Greeley as a Bride--Her Accomplishments--A Letter concerning Mr. Greeley's Wedding

Visitors--Our Neighbors--The Chappaqua Croquet Club--Gabrielle's Letter--A Riding Party--Summer Heat--The Music-room--Friends from the City

Midsummer Day--An Artist's Visit--Ida's Letter--Moonlight on Croton Lake--Morning Readings--Plato and Kohlrausch

Story-telling--Mr. Greeley's Father--His Personal Appearance--His Education--A Fine Voice--Mr. Greeley's Mother--A Handsome Woman--How she is remembered in Vermont--Field Labor--Bankruptcy--A Journey to Vermont--School Days--The Boy Horace--How he entertained his Playmates--His First Ball--Separation from his Family

A Picnic at Croton Dam--The Waterworks--A Game of Twenty Questions--Gabrielle as a Logician--Evangeline's Betrothal--Marguerite's Letter--Description of Chappaqua--Visitors--Edmonia Lewis

Cataloguing the Library--A Thousand Volumes--Contrasting Books--Some Rare Volumes--Mr. Greeley's Collection of Paintings--Authenticity of the Cenci Questioned--A Portrait of Galileo--Portrait of Martin Luther--Portrait of Mr. Greeley at Thirty--Powers' Proserpine--Hart's Bust of Mr. Greeley--Mosaics and Medallions

The Fourth of July--A Quaker Celebration--The House in the Woods--Mrs. Greeley's Life there--Pickie--Mary Inez--Raffie--Childhood of Ida and Gabrielle--Heroism of Mrs. Greeley--The Riots of 1863--Mrs. Greeley defends her House against the Mob

Pen Portraits--Lela--Majoli--Guerrabella and Celina--Their Characteristics

Biography of Mr. Greeley--Gabrielle's Questions--Mrs. Cleveland's Corrections--The Boy Horace not Gawky, Clownish, or a Tow-head--His Parents not in Abject Want--Mr. Greeley's Letter about his Former Playmates--Young Horace and his Girl Friends--He Corrects their Grammar and Lectures them upon Hygiene--He disapproves of Corsets

The Morning Mail--A Letter to Mrs. Cleveland--Strange Contents--Ida's Letter Bag--Appeals for Money, for Clothing, and for her Hand--An Original Letter from a Trapper

Life in the Woods of Pennsylvania--Journey from Vermont to Pennsylvania in 1826--Travelling on Canal-boats--Incidents by the Way--Home in the Wilderness--Aggressions of Bears and Wolves

A Birthday--A Surprise--The Day celebrated by a Dinner--An Awkward Mistake--A Queen of Fashion--A Drive to Tarrytown--A Poem to Ida

Gabrielle and her Embroidery--Life in Pennsylvania continued--Sugar-making--Horrible Incident--A Woman devoured by Wolves--A Domestic Picture--Evening Readings--The Library of Mr. Greeley's Father--Mr. Greeley's Mother intellectually considered--Her Education--Mr. Greeley's Eldest Sister--She teaches School at the Age of Twelve

Visitors--A Sunday Drive--Croton Lake by Daylight--A Sail--A Sudden Squall--Anxiety about our Fate--Miraculous Escape from Drowning--Arrival of a Pretty Cousin--A Child Poetess

A Quiet Household--Absence of Marguerite and Gabrielle--Amusing Letters from them--A Gypsy Fortune-teller--Marguerite returns with a Visitor--The Harvest Moon--Preparing for Company--Arranging the Blue Room--Intense Anticipation--"'He Cometh Not,' She Said"

The Story of Mr. Greeley's Parents continued--He accompanies his Mother to New Hampshire--Her Sisters--Three Thanksgivings in One Year--Pickie as a Baby--His Childhood--Mrs. Greeley's Careful Training--His Playthings--His Death--A Letter from Margaret Fuller

The Friends' Seminary--The Principal Chappaqua Residences--Reminiscences of Paris during the War--An Accomplished Lady--Her Voice--Festivities--A Drive to Rye Lake--Making Tea on the Beach--A Sail at Sunset--Fortune-telling by Firelight--The Drive Home--Sunday Morning--A Row on the Pond--Dramatic Representations in the Barn--A Drive to Lake Wampus--Starlight Row

Marriage of a Cousin--A Pretty Bride--Letters--Home Circle Complete--A Letter of Adventures--Wedding Cards--A Musical Marriage--Housekeeping under Difficulties--Telegraphic Blunders--A Bust of Mr. Greeley--More Visitors

"All that's Bright must Fade"--Departures--Preparing the House for the Winter--Page's Portrait of Pickie--Packing up--Studious Habits of the Domestics--The Cook and her Admirers--Adieu to Chappaqua

The Side-Hill House

The Spring

The Rail-Road Station

The House in the Woods

The Children's Play House

The Stone Barn

THE STORY OF A SUMMER;

OR,

JOURNAL LEAVES FROM CHAPPAQUA.

Return to Chappaqua--A Walk over the Grounds--The Sidehill House--Our First Sunday at Chappaqua--Drive to Mount Kisco--A Country Church--A Dame Ch?telaine--Our Domestic Surroundings.

CHAPPAQUA, WESTCHESTER Co.,

Again at dear Chappaqua, after an absence of seven months. I have not the heart to journalize tonight, everything seems so sad and strange. What a year this has been--what bright anticipations, what overwhelming sorrow!

I have just returned from a long ramble over the dear old place; first up to the new house so picturesquely placed upon a hill, and down through the woods to the cool pine grove and the flower-garden. Here I found a wilderness of purple and white lilacs, longing, I thought, for a friendly hand to gather them before they faded; dear little bright-eyed pansies, and scarlet and crimson flowering shrubs, a souvenir of travel in England, with sweet-scented violets striped blue and white, transplanted from Pickie's little garden at Turtle Bay long years ago.

Our first Sunday at Chappaqua. We have a little church for a next-door neighbor, in which services of different sects are held on alternate Sundays, the pulpit being hospitably open to all denominations excepting Papists. Three members of our little household, however--mamma, Marguerite, and I--belong to the grand old Church of Rome; so the carriage was ordered, and with our brother in religion, Bernard, the coachman, for a pioneer, we started to find a church or chapel of the Latin faith. At Mount Kisco, a little town four miles distant, Bernard thought we might hear Mass, "but then it's not the sort of church you ladies are used to," he added, apologetically; "it's a small chapel, and only rough working people go there."

"Over the hills, and far away."

Although it was Whit-Sunday the altar was quite innocent of ornament, having only six candles, and a floral display of two bouquets. The seats and kneeling-benches were uncushioned, and the congregation was composed, as Bernard said, entirely of the working class; but the people were very clean and respectable in their appearance, and fervent in their devotions as only the Irish peasantry can be.

This ceremony over, the young Father came out in his black cassock, and taking up his vestments which lay upon the altar-steps, he proceeded with the utmost nonchalance to put them on, not hesitating to display a long rent in his surplice, and a decidedly ragged sleeve.

Minna came to me this morning directly after breakfast, and said, "Where shall I go to church, Fr?ulein Cecilia?"

"I do not really know, Minna," I replied. "You are a Lutheran, I suppose?"

"Yes, Fr?ulein Cecilia."

"There is no church of that sort here," I said, "but there is a Reformed Church next door."

I explained to her as clearly as I could, that Pfingsten was only a Fest-tag in her church, mine, and the Church of England, and that it was never in this country a Fest-tag, outside of the religious observance.

A very perplexed face was the result of my explanations; why Pfingsten should not be Pfingsten the world over, and a public holiday with all sorts of merry-makings, she could not understand.

Arrival of the Piano--Routine of a Day--Morning Toilettes--The Dining-room--Pictures--Ida and Gabrielle--How occupied--The Evening Mail--Musical Evenings.

Yesterday the piano was sent up from Steinway's, where it has been stored since last fall, and now we have all settled to our different occupations, and are as methodical in the disposition of our time as though we were in school.

None of us are very early risers, for mamma, who should naturally set us a good example, has been too long an invalid to admit of it, and we girls have become habituated to the luxury of breakfasting in bed, from residence abroad and in the tropics. Not that we breakfast in bed at the "Villa Greeley," however; we are much too sociable, and our dining-room is too attractive, for that. But we gratify our taste for reasonable hours by assembling around the table at half-past eight.

At half-past eight a little hand-bell, silver in material and tone, summons us to the breakfast-room. This room is on the ground floor, and is one of the prettiest in the house. Four windows give us an extended view of our Dame Ch?telaine's sloping meadows and wooded hills, and the carriage road winding off towards the pine grove and the house in the woods. We have several pictures on the walls--first a portrait of my dear uncle; a boyish face with fair hair, deep blue eyes, and an expression angelic in sweetness. No one would imagine it to be the face of a married man, but it was painted, mamma says, when he was thirty years old. Two large and admirable photographs, taken early last summer, hang opposite it. A striking contrast they are to the pensive, fragile, blonde boy; these are impressed with the vigor and mental and physical activity of his busy life, but the broad intellectual brow, and the almost divine expression that plays about the mouth, are the same in each.

An engraving from a picture by Paul Delaroche, the Archangel Gabriel--the "patron," in Catholic parlance, of our little Gabrielle--hangs between the windows, and over the comfortable sofa is a copy of Liotard's celebrated pastel "la belle Chocolati?re" in the Dresden Gallery. This copy Aunt Mary bought in that city when there some years ago, and it is considered wonderfully fine. Very pretty and coquettish she looks in her picturesque Vienna dress, with the small, neatly-fitting cap, ample apron, and tiny Louis Quinze shoes. In her case

"My face is my fortune,"

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