Читать книгу Ginger-Snaps - Fern Fanny - Страница 10

"WHICH would you prefer," asked a friend of me, – "a pretty useless present, or an ugly useful one?" I had to stop and think before replying. I knew it was a trap sprung for my halting; so, woman-like, I dodged my weak side by saying, "There is no necessity, as I see, for either extreme."

One of our first biographers has remarked of me, that if he brings home an ugly-looking book, and lays it upon the table, I very soon transfer it to a less conspicuous locality. This may or may not be true; meantime I am not going to blink the fact that I adore pretty things. Butter tastes better to me from a dainty little dish. So do vegetables. Nor, to compass this, does one need the purse of Fortunatus. Pretty shapes in vases, pitchers, plates, and the like, have commended themselves to me, though not of silver. In fact, since the burglars relieved me of my silver while in the country last summer, I resolutely set my face against any further invitations to them in that shape. This is to certify that henceforth only plated ware, but very pretty plated ware, shall cross my threshold.

But, not to digress, what a "mess" people generally make of holiday presents! Some houses contain only silver soup-ladles, others a superabundance of butter-knives. Some babies, again, have silver cups enough so furnish all their descendants, be they more or less. The most harrowing present I know of is a "picture annual," all over gilt, with wide margins inside, and with common-sense at a discount. It is a type of a pretty mouth from whence issues only folly. Worsted cats and dogs come next, in the shape of mats, chair-covers, etc. Now a dozen of handkerchiefs or gloves, may be both pretty and sensible as a present. So is a flower-stand, without which, in my opinion, no parlor is furnished, how plentifully soever satin and gilt may abound. I am frivolous enough to like rings, brooches, ear-rings, and bracelets, of lovely, but above all, odd forms and designs, if worn at the proper time and place. But, dear! dear! I shouldn't make a good Quaker, for a bit of scarlet somewhere in my room, is quite necessary to my peace of mind. I look at that elaborate little bird-house for sparrows, fronting the Quaker meeting-house, and I think I see a symptom of the coming millennium for Quakers. I frankly own to exchanging a white syrup-pitcher the other day, in favor of a white one with a scarlet handle. I like these little touches of color to a degree, that, if Heaven depended on their absence, might possibly peril my chances of Paradise.

Now I am not apologizing for this – not a bit! I am only sorry for those of you who trudge along whether from choice or necessity – through life's dusty highway, without stopping to notice, or to cull, the flowers hidden in its hedge-rows, and place them as you go, in your hair, or in your bosom.

Pretty things are humanizing. I wish every work-room could have its flowers and its pictures. My God don't turn His back on either. Even in the dull old yard of a tenement house, He sends up through the chinks tiny blades of grass and dandelion, and chickweed blossoms. And does not the pure white snow come sifting down over the garbage-heaps and ash-barrels before the door of poverty which man, less merciful, would doom to have all the year round before their disgusted vision?

Meantime, let us hope that "the minister's" holiday present may be a pair of boxing-gloves instead of a hymn-book, of which latter he has a surfeit. As to his wife – for goodness' sake, send her the same thing you would, were she the wife of a layman. And if you order her a cake, don't surmount it with a cross, of which ministers' wives have already too many in their parishioners. Give an editor a new subscriber and you can't miss it. Send a lawyer no bones to pick, unless – well covered with meat! And don't make a pup of your husband by giving him a velvet dressing-gown. And as to you, sir, don't pick out for your wife just what your friend Jenkins does for his; because, though men are all alike, and cigars are always acceptable to them, yet a man can never be certain whether his wife, on the receipt of a present from her husband, will box his ears, or fall to kissing him; and since Variety is the god of most men, I suppose this is all right.

It must be owned, that of all perplexing things on earth, the greatest is the perplexity of choosing a present. After you have considered, first your purse; then the multifarious demands upon it; then the age, desires, and taste of the recipient – comes the weary tramp in hot, crowded stores for the desired article; comes the known incivility of most women bent on shopping errands, to their fellow-women; of addressing the clerk, upon whom you, as first-comer, have a prior claim, or even drawing from your and his fingers the very article you have under distracted consideration. Of course I don't mean you, my dear; didn't I say most women? You will always find that I leave a door of escape open, before I insinuate that my sex are not all seraphs. Well – you make your purchase, and perspire in your furs, while "cash" performs his gymnastics through feminine feet and hoops, to get it parcelled and return your change. But, alas! this is only one present, and it has taken an entire morning to get it, and when you get home Aunt Jemima whispers confidentially "that she overheard John say that he had bought that very article for the same person for whom yours was intended;" and, what is worse, you can't transfer it, because there is no other member of the family for whom it would be suitable. You wonder if it wouldn't do to enclose so many dollars to each member of the family, and let them make their own selection. Sentiment would have to "go under," of course; but don't it when a recipient wonders "how much you paid for your gift"? Time was, when a present was acceptable, or on the contrary, according to the love which prompted it, and not according to the value of the gift. Now, young ladies expect diamonds, and pearls, and rubies, and quite turn up their pretty noses at a book, or a work-box, or a writing-desk. What with "golden weddings" and "silver weddings," and other bids for gold and silver in various shapes, what with the bugbear word "mean" in such connection, bankruptcy, or an inglorious exit, is the only alternative to many. I have been some time coming to my moral, which is this: that the "present" system is, to use a slang expression, "run into the ground." I except the present a husband gives his wife, for whom nothing of course is too good, or too tasteful, or too costly; and who can, while receiving it, ask him to give her a hundred dollars or so, to go out and buy him one! Also, in all heartiness, and without joking, I except the little children, whose lovely dream of Santa Claus vanishes with the flossy, golden-tipped curls of babyhood. Pile up for them the dolls, and tops, and whistles, and wagons, and kaleidoscopes, and velocipedes, that they may always when old age seats them in the chimney-corner have this bright spot to look back upon, over the graves of buried hopes and hearts, which could not else bear thinking of.