In the town called Cantabridge, now a city, water-veined and gas windpiped, in the street running down to the Bridge, beyond which dwelt Sally, told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited by three maidens.They left no near kinsfolk, Ibelieve; whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them;for they lived and died in all good report and maidenly credit.The house they lived in was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen.The lower story was fitted up as a shop.Specially was it provided with one of those half-doors now so rarely met with, which are to whole doors as spencers worn by old folk are to coats.They speak of limited commerce united with a social or observing disposition--on the part of the shopkeeper,--allowing, as they do, talk with passers-by, yet keeping off such as have not the excuse of business to cross the threshold.On the door-posts, at either side, above the half-door, hung certain perennial articles of merchandise, of which my memory still has hanging among its faded photographs a kind of netted scarf and some pairs of thick woollen stockings.More articles, but not very many, were stored inside; and there was one drawer, containing children's books, out of which I once was treated to a minute quarto ornamented with handsome cuts.This was the only purchase I ever knew to be made at the shop kept by the three maiden ladies, though it is probable there were others.So long as I remember the shop, the same scarf and, I should say, the same stockings hung on the door-posts.--You think I am exaggerating again, and that shopkeepers would not keep the same article exposed for years.Come to me, the Professor, and I will take you in five minutes to a shop in this city where I will show you an article hanging now in the very place where more than thirty years ago I myself inquired the price of it of the present head of the establishment.[ This was a glass alembic, which hung up in Daniel Henchman's apothecary shop, corner of Cambridge and Chambers streets.]
The three maidens were of comely presence, and one of them had had claims to be considered a Beauty.When I saw them in the old meeting-house on Sundays, as they rustled in through the aisles in silks and satins, not gay, but more than decent, as I remember them, I thought of My Lady Bountiful in the history of "Little King Pippin," and of the Madam Blaize of Goldsmith (who, by the way, must have taken the hint of it from a pleasant poem, "Monsieur de la Palisse," attributed to De la Monnoye, in the collection of French songs before me).There was some story of an old romance in which the Beauty had played her part.Perhaps they all had had lovers;for, as I said, they were shapely and seemly personages, as Iremember them; but their lives were out of the flower and in the berry at the time of my first recollections.
One after another they all three dropped away, objects of kindly attention to the good people round, leaving little or almost nothing, and nobody to inherit it.Not absolutely nothing, of course.There must have been a few old dresses--perhaps some bits of furniture, a Bible, and the spectacles the good old souls read it through, and little keepsakes, such as make us cry to look at, when we find them in old drawers;--such relics there must have been.But there was more.There was a manuscript of some hundred pages, closely written, in which the poor things had chronicled for many years the incidents of their daily life.After their death it was passed round somewhat freely, and fell into my hands.How I have cried and laughed and colored over it! There was nothing in it to be ashamed of, perhaps there was nothing in it to laugh at, but such a picture of the mode of being of poor simple good old women I do believe was never drawn before.And there were all the smallest incidents recorded, such as do really make up humble life, but which die out of all mere literary memoirs, as the houses where the Egyptians or the Athenians lived crumble and leave only their temples standing.I know, for instance, that on a given day of a certain year, a kindly woman, herself a poor widow, now, I trust, not without special mercies in heaven for her good deeds,--for Iread her name on a proper tablet in the churchyard a week ago,--sent a fractional pudding from her own table to the Maiden Sisters, who, I fear, from the warmth and detail of their description, were fasting, or at least on short allowance, about that time.I know who sent them the segment of melon, which in her riotous fancy one of them compared to those huge barges to which we give the ungracious name of mudscows.But why should I illustrate further what it seems almost a breach of confidence to speak of? Some kind friend, who could challenge a nearer interest than the curious strangers into whose hands the book might fall, at last claimed it, and I was glad that it should be henceforth sealed to common eyes.
I learned from it that every good and, alas! every evil act we do may slumber unforgotten even in some earthly record.I got a new lesson in that humanity which our sharp race finds it so hard to learn.The poor widow, fighting hard to feed and clothe and educate her children, had not forgotten the poorer ancient maidens.
I remembered it the other day, as I stood by her place of rest, and I felt sure that it was remembered elsewhere.I know there are prettier words than pudding, but I can't help it,--the pudding went upon the record, I feel sure, with the mite which was cast into the treasury by that other poor widow whose deed the world shall remember forever, and with the coats and garments which the good women cried over, when Tabitha, called by interpretation Dorcas, lay dead in the upper chamber, with her charitable needlework strewed around her.
