Читать книгу The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern - William U. Moulton - Страница 5

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In accordance with the course he had wisely planned for his children, Sarah Willis—the veritable "Fanny"—was favored with an early introduction into the seminary of Miss Catherine E. Beecher, in Hartford, Conn. At this well-conducted establishment—the most popular in the country, at that time—Miss Fanny received her first strong impressions of life and the world. We have never heard her spoken of as a very apt or studious pupil. Staid works of philosophy and learning were not much to her taste. But from the prohibited pages of romances and poems, eagerly devoured in secret, her craving genius derived an active stimulus. Already she had become a keen dissector of the human heart, and she found plenty of pleasant practice for the scalpel of her wit among the young ladies of the school. Here, too, the novel and startling experiences of boarding-school flirtation gave their warm coloring to her future life. Fanny possessed a large capacity for this description of knowledge, and her writings show a better memory for those more pleasant branches of female education, than for the dry rules of syntax and prosody. In fact, the best of her sketches are transcripts of her school-girl life—for Fanny writes well only when giving the concentrated vinegar and spice of her own vivid experiences.

A sketch of Fanny's, entitled "A Leaf from my Experience," referring to her school-life, may, perhaps, form the best embodiment of the earlier portion of her school-history.

"Miss Jemima Keturah Rix was at the head of a flourishing school for very young ladies and gentlemen. She originated in the blue state of Connecticut, where the hens, from principle, refrain from laying eggs on Sunday, and the yeast stops working for the same reason. She had very little opinion of her own sex, and none at all of the other. Her means were uncommonly limited, yet 'she was too much of a gentlewoman to keep school, had it not been for her strong desire to reform the rising generation.'

"In person, she was tall and spare, with small, snapping black eyes, and thin, compressed lips, telling strongly of her vixenish propensities. She could repeat the Ten Commandments and Assembly's Catechism backwards, without missing a word; and was a firm believer in total depravity and the eternal destruction of little dead babies.

"She had the usual variety of temper and disposition, generally found in a school, and a way of her own of getting along with them. She would catch a refractory pupil with one hand by the shoulder, and press the thumb with such force into the hollow of the arm, that the poor victim was ready to subscribe to any articles of faith or practice she might see fit to draw up; and who of us will soon forget that old brass thimble, mounted on her skinny forefinger, as it came snapping against our foreheads?

"Being considered an untamable witch at home, I had the ill luck to be sent to this little initiatory purgatory. This was unfortunate, as Miss Rix and I looked at life through very different pairs of spectacles. The first great grief I can remember, was when I was about as tall as a rosebush,—nearly breaking my heart, because a little boy threw away one of my ringlets, that I cut off for his especial keeping. In fact, I may as well own it, I was born a coquette; and the lynx eyes of Miss Rix had already discovered it.

"She always made a chalk line on the floor between the girls and boys, that neither were allowed to cross without a special permit. Being aware of this, I had been in the habit of making certain telegraphic communications with a little lover of mine, in jacket and trowsers, on the other side of chalk-dom.

"Little dreaming of the storm that was brewing, I sat watching her one morning, as she slowly drew from her pocket a long piece of cord, and tested its strength. Raising her sharp cracked voice to its most crucifying pitch, she called,

"'Miss Minnie May and Mr. Harry Hall step out upon the floor.' Of course, we didn't do anything else, when, turning us back to back, she silently proceeded to tie our elbows together with the cord, remarking, with a satanic grin, as she sat down, that 'we seemed to be so fond of each other, it was a pity to keep us apart.'

"Now this was a very cutting thing to me, in more ways than one, as Harry's jacket sleeves protected his arms, while my little fat elbows were getting redder every minute from the twitches he made to extricate himself; for, like some bigger boys, he was very willing to be a fair-weather lover, but couldn't face a storm. I've never forgiven him for it, (true to my woman nature,) and though I often meet him now, (he is a thriving physician with an extensive practice;) and he looks so roguishly from out those saucy black eyes, as much as to say, 'I wouldn't mind being tied to you now, Minnie,' I give him a perfect freezer of a look and 'pass by on the other side.'

"I understand that Miss Rix has rested from her labors and gone to her reward. I wish no better satisfaction than that she may get it!"