The Guardian Angel. Oliver Wendell Holmes

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THE GUARDIAN ANGEL

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CHAPTER I. AN ADVERTISEMENT.

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      On Saturday, the 18th day of June, 1859, the “State Banner and Delphian Oracle,” published weekly at Oxbow Village, one of the principal centres in a thriving river-town of New England, contained an advertisement which involved the story of a young life, and stained the emotions of a small community. Such faces of dismay, such shaking of heads, such gatherings at corners, such halts of complaining, rheumatic wagons, and dried-up, chirruping chaises, for colloquy of their still-faced tenants, had not been known since the rainy November Friday, when old Malachi Withers was found hanging in his garret up there at the lonely house behind the poplars.

      The number of the “Banner and Oracle” which contained this advertisement was a fair specimen enough of the kind of newspaper to which it belonged. Some extracts from a stray copy of the issue of the date referred to will show the reader what kind of entertainment the paper was accustomed to furnish its patrons, and also serve some incidental purposes of the writer in bringing into notice a few personages who are to figure in this narrative.

      The copy in question was addressed to one of its regular subscribers—“B. Gridley, Esq.” The sarcastic annotations at various points, enclosed in brackets and italicised that they may be distinguished from any other comments, were taken from the pencilled remarks of that gentleman, intended for the improvement of a member of the family in which he resided, and are by no means to be attributed to the harmless pen which reproduces them.

      Byles Gridley, A. M., as he would have been styled by persons acquainted with scholarly dignities, was a bachelor, who had been a schoolmaster, a college tutor, and afterwards for many years professor—a man of learning, of habits, of whims and crotchets, such as are hardly to be found, except in old, unmarried students—the double flowers of college culture, their stamina all turned to petals, their stock in the life of the race all funded in the individual. Being a man of letters, Byles Gridley naturally rather undervalued the literary acquirements of the good people of the rural district where he resided, and, having known much of college and something of city life, was apt to smile at the importance they attached to their little local concerns. He was, of course, quite as much an object of rough satire to the natural observers and humorists, who are never wanting in a New England village—perhaps not in any village where a score or two of families are brought together—enough of them, at any rate, to furnish the ordinary characters of a real-life stock company.

      The old Master of Arts was a permanent boarder in the house of a very worthy woman, relict of the late Ammi Hopkins, by courtesy Esquire, whose handsome monument—in a finished and carefully colored lithograph, representing a finely shaped urn under a very nicely groomed willow—hung in her small, well-darkened, and, as it were, monumental parlor. Her household consisted of herself, her son, nineteen years of age, of whom more hereafter, and of two small children, twins, left upon her doorstep when little more than mere marsupial possibilities, taken in for the night, kept for a week, and always thereafter cherished by the good soul as her own; also of Miss Susan Posey, aged eighteen, at school at the “Academy” in another part of the same town, a distant relative, boarding with her.

      What the old scholar took the village paper for it would be hard to guess, unless for a reason like that which carried him very regularly to hear the preaching of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, colleague of the old minister of the village parish; namely, because he did not believe a word of his favorite doctrines, and liked to go there so as to growl to himself through the sermon, and go home scolding all the way about it.

      The leading article of the “Banner and Oracle” for June 18th must have been of superior excellence, for, as Mr. Gridley remarked, several of the “metropolitan” journals of the date of June 15th and thereabout had evidently conversed with the writer and borrowed some of his ideas before he gave them to the public. The Foreign News by the Europa at Halifax, 15th, was spread out in the amplest dimensions the type of the office could supply. More battles! The Allies victorious! The King and General Cialdini beat the Austrians at Palestro! 400 Austrians drowned in a canal! Anti-French feeling in Germany! Allgermine Zeiturg talks of conquest of Allsatia and Loraine and the occupation of Paris! [Vicious digs with a pencil through the above proper names.] Race for the Derby won by Sir Joseph Hawley's Musjid! [That's what England cares for! Hooray for the Darby! Italy be deedeed!] Visit of Prince Alfred to the Holy Land. Letter from our own Correspondent. [Oh! Oh! A West Minkville?] Cotton advanced. Breadstuffs declining.—Deacon Rumrill's barn burned down on Saturday night. A pig missing; supposed to have “fallen a prey to the devouring element.” [Got roasted.] A yellow mineral had been discovered on the Doolittle farm, which, by the report of those who had seen it, bore a strong resemblance to California gold ore. Much excitement in the neighborhood in consequence [Idiots! Iron pyrites!] A hen at Four Corners had just laid an egg measuring 7 by 8 inches. Fetch on your biddies! [Editorial wit!] A man had shot an eagle measuring six feet and a half from tip to tip of his wings.—Crops suffering for want of rain [Always just so. “Dry times, Father Noah!”] The editors had received a liberal portion of cake from the happy couple whose matrimonial union was recorded in the column dedicated to Hymen. Also a superior article of [article of! bah!] steel pen from the enterprising merchant [shopkeeper] whose advertisement was to be found on the third page of this paper.—An interesting Surprise Party [cheap theatricals] had transpired [bah!] on Thursday evening last at the house of the Rev. Mr. Stoker. The parishioners had donated [donated! GIVE is a good word enough for the Lord's Prayer. DONATE our daily bread!] a bag of meal, a bushel of beans, a keg of pickles, and a quintal of salt-fish. The worthy pastor was much affected, etc., etc. [Of course. Call'em. SENSATION parties and done with it!] The Rev. Dr. Pemberton and the venerable Dr. Hurlbut honored the occasion with their presence.—We learn that the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth, rector of St. Bartholomew's Chapel, has returned from his journey, and will officiate to-morrow.

      Then came strings of advertisements, with a luxuriant vegetation of capitals and notes of admiration. More of those PRIME GOODS! Full Assortments of every Article in our line! [Except the one thing you want!] Auction Sale. Old furniture, feather-beds, bed-spreads [spreads! ugh!], setts [setts!] crockery-ware, odd vols., ullage bbls. of this and that, with other household goods, etc., etc., etc.—the etceteras meaning all sorts of insane movables, such as come out of their bedlam-holes when an antiquated domestic establishment disintegrates СКАЧАТЬ